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<; 



UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 



The Changing Race Relationship in 
the Border and Northern States 



BY 



HANNIBAL GERALD DUNCAN, A. M., Th. D. 

PROFESaOR OF ECONOMICS AND SoCIOLOaT 

Simmons Colleqe. 



A THESIS 

PRESENTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA IN 
PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR 
THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 



PHILADELPHIA, PA. 
1922 



r-^ / V 



yt^ \ 



PRESS OF 
INTELLIGENCER PRINTING COMPANY 
LANCASTER. PENNA. 



Gift 



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TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Chapter Pa^^ 

Preface 3 

I. Migration 5 

1. Number 5 

2. Type 1'^ 

3. Causes 19 

II. Segregation in Cities and in the Country 22 

1. By general growth 22 

2. By law 26 

3. In the country 33 

III. Segregation in Institutions of Learning 35 

1. Elementary and high schools 37 

2. Business and trade schools 41 

3. Colleges and universities 42 

4. Hospitals, reformatories, and asylums 47 

IV. Race Distinctions in Places OF Public Accommodation 55 

1. Railroads and street cars 55 

2. Hotels and restaurants 62 

3. Theatres and motion pictures shows 04 

4. Barbershops and bootblack stands 66 

5. Skating-rinks and pool-rooms 68 

6. Parks 68 

V. Race Distinction in the Economic and Political World .... 71 

1. Professional and business men 72 

2. Skilled and unskilled laborers 77 

3. Office holders, voters, and the courts 85 

VI. Sex Relationship and Crime 90 

1. Interracial marriage 91 

2. Mulattoes 94 

3. Crime, riots, and lynchings 98 

VII. Religious Relationship 106 

1. In churches 10^^ 

2. In Young Men's Christian Associations 114 

VIII. General Summary and Conclusions 116 

Bibliography 1""1 



PREFACE 

Some twenty-five years ago Henry Grady was invited to de- 
liver an address in Boston on the New South. On his way to 
Boston he stopped for a day in New York City, where he met a 
staunch Southern friend, who asked, with interest, what he 
would say to the people in Boston about the South. Grady 
replied: "For the life of me, I don't know. I can think of a 
score of things which, if I do not say, the people of Georgia will 
lynch me when I return to that State, and which, if I do say, 
the people of Boston will skin me alive before I can leave town." 
I suppose every one who has spoken or written anything on the 
Negro question has felt himself in somewhat the same predica- 
ment. 

Six years ago I began the study of the Negro problem. Since 
that time I have tried to take advantage of the opportunities 
afforded me to gain a correct and sane view of the problem. 
After the subject of this thesis came to my mind I went to 
several large public libraries and read everything I could find 
on the Negro problem. Then I traveled several thousand miles, 
going to a number of the largest cities and towns to investigate 
the real race relationship. In addition I have written over a 
hundred letters to authors, writers, social workers, investigators, 
and other public men and women who are in a position to give 
accurate information, many of whom have written me the 
results of their investigations on different points and their 
opinions, etc., for all of which I am indeed grateful. 

My purpose in writing my thesis on this subject is primarily 
to show that the Northern white people have lost their war-time 
sentiment for the Negro race, and are becoming more hostile to 
his presence and less interested in his welfare; and secondarily, 
to show that the Southern white people have lost some of their 
war-time sentiment and are becoming more interested in the 
uphft and welfare of the Negro race. 

I purposed not to go below the Southern Border States, nor 
into the Western States, but I have quite often had to overstep 
my boundary. So many boards, conferences, conventions, etc., 
are designated as Southern, Northern, and Western, which 

3 



4 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

boundaries cut some sections and States in twain, and do all 
their business in one central body, that I have been forced to go 
over my boundary. Then I have occasionally referred to some 
specific thing out of my boundary to draw a comparison or to 
bring out more clearly some point under consideration. 

I do not think I have written a mere iu quoque argument. 
Such a puerile performance, I fear, would be perilous for me. I 
did not intend to write a defence of the South and a condemnation 
of the North, nor vice versa. I have written of conditions just 
as I have found them, and I have expressed my views frankly 
about conditions which the data I have collected sustain. 

Hannibal Gerald Duncan 
Moravian Falls, N. C, September, 1919. 



CHAPTER I 
MIGRATION 

We hear and read much to-day about the exodus of Negroes 
from the South into the North, but few seem to have any definite 
idea of the extent and scope of this migration or the causes that 
bring it about. Some seem to think there is no undue exodus, 
while others have the idea that it is much larger than it really is. 

In this chapter I shall endeavor to find out something of the 
number of Negroes who are migrating, the type, and the causes 
of their migration. I shall have to deal mostly with statistics, 
tables, etc. As every one who has dealt with statistics knows, 
we can not rely upon them to prove every point. So do those 
who have studied the statistics of the Negro know that some 
reports relating to the per cent, of increase of the Negro can not 
be wholly trusted. When the census report of 1900 came out, 
experts and students of Negro census were greatly baffled. They 
could not understand why there should be such a fluctuation in 
the Negro population, seemingly without a cause. The truth 
was, as they later decided, that in 1890 census taking had been 
badly done, especially in the South. In all probability, the rate 
of Negro increase between 1880 and 1890 was about 16 per cent, 
rather than 13.5 per cent.; and between 1890 and 1900, under 15 
per cent, rather than 18 per cent, as reported. However this may 
be, I feel that this would not make any material change in the kind 
of work I am doing, as these mistakes were chiefly, if not wholly, 
in the "Negro States" and have little or nothing to do with the 
Border and Northern States. So I feel that we can very satis- 
factorily rely upon the statistics that I shall use in this chapter; 
and in this chapter I hope to lay the basis for some of the con- 
clusions reached in other chapters. 

1. Let us try to find out something about the number of 
Negroes who are migrating and whether they are migrating 
from the South to the North, or from the North to the South. 

5 



6 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

TABLE I 
Percentage op Absolute Increase of Racial Elements, 1900-1910.' 

Native White of Native White of 

Cities Native Parents Foreign Parents Foreign Born Negro 

New York 25.0 32.0 52.1 51.2 

Chicago 25.6 25.3 18.1 46.3 

Philadelphia 11.9 19.9 30.2 34.9 

St. Louis 42.0 3.2 13.2 23.8 

Pittsburg 19.6 14.0 22.3 25.3 

Kansas City 62.9 36.5 38.5 34.1 

Indianapolis 54.0 8.0 15.8 37.5 

Cincinnati 36.3 5.7 1.8 33.7 

Boston 8.0 24.2 23.4 16.9 

In the above table I have taken a few of the largest cities of 
the North to find out the increase of the racial elements in those 
cities for the decade ending 1910. In it we find that the Negro 
element has increased in New York City next to the foreign born; 
in Philadelphia, Chicago, and Pittsburg it has gone far ahead of 
any of the other racial elements. In St. Louis, Indianapolis, 
and Cincinnati it comes next to the native whites, and in Kansas 
City, alone, it falls to the bottom of the list. Thus we find the 
Northern cities of the metropolitan class showing a percentage in 
the absolute increase in the Negro population varying from 51.2% 
to 16.9%, New York standing at the top and Boston at the 
bottom. 

In table II, we find a steady increase in the percentage of 
Negroes in the total population in New York, Philadelphia, 
Chicago, St. Louis, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Jersey City, and 
Columbus. In Boston, Cleveland, Baltimore, Buffalo, Kansas 
City, Indianapolis, Louisville, Memphis, Wilmington, and Little 
Rock we find a higher percentage of Negroes in 1900 than in 
either 1910 or 1890. Newark shows no change for the last two 
decades. So we may say in the last named cities there is no 
indication of a rise in the percentage of Negroes, but a decrease 
for the last decade is noted in all except Newark. When we 
turn to Washington and Richmond, two cities which have been 
noted for their Negro population, we find a steady decrease in the 
percentage of Negroes. It is probable that the decrease in the 
last two cities was due to migration. It seems plausible that 
these cities, situated as they are, would furnish many Negroes 
for the North. The great fluctuations in some of the cities shows 
the need of local study, which alone can determine the conditions 
and the causes of the fluctuations. 

' Census for 1900-1910. 



Race Relationshij) in Border and Northern States 



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8 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

TABLE III 
Percentage of Racial Elements in Total Population in 1910.^ 
Native White of Native White of 



Cities 


Native Parents 


Foreign Parents 


Foreign Born Negro 


New York 


19.3 


38.2 


40.4 


1.9 


Chicago 


20.4 


41.8 


35.7 


2.0 


Philadelphia 


37.7 


32.1 


24.7 


5.5 


St. Louis 


39.3 


35.9 


18.3 


6.4 


Boston 


23.5 


38.3 


35.9 


2.0 


Cleveland 


23.6 


39.9 


34.9 


1.5 


Baltimore 


4G.8 


24.1 


13.8 


15.2 


Pittsburg 


33.0 


35.9 


26.3 


4.8 


Buffalo 


28.2 


43.3 


28.0 


0.4 


Cincinnati 


42.6 


36.4 


15.G 


5.4 


Newark 


27.3 


38.1 


31.8 


2.7 


Washington 


50.4 


13.6 


7.4 


28.5 


Jersey City 


28.0 


40.7 


29.0 


2.2 


Kansas City 


01.9 


18.4 


10.2 


9.5 


Indianapolis 


64.5 


17.7 


8.5 


9.3 


Louisville 


50.7 


23.4 


7.8 


18.1 


Columbus 


64.4 


19.6 


9.0 


7.0 


Richmond 


54.2 


6.0 


3.2 


36.6 


Wilmington 


51.4 


22.5 


15.6 


10.4 


Memphis 


45.8 


9.3 


4.9 


40.0 


Little Rock 


54.0 


10.0 


4.3 


31.6 



In table III, I have taken the largest cities in the Border and 
Northern States to compare the percentage of racial elements in 
the total population of these cities. In them I find the percent- 
age of Negro population in the total population ranging from 
0.4% in Buffalo to 40.0% in Memphis. The percentage of 
Negroes in the Northern metropolitan cities is generally very small 
compared with the other racial elements, but as we approach 
the South it suddenly begins to rise. Wilmington has 10.4%; 
Baltimore, 15.2%; Louisville, 18.1%; Washington, 28.5%; Little 
Rock, 31.6%; Richmond, 36.6%; Memphis, 40.0%. In Wash- 
ington, Little Rock, Richmond, and Memphis it is exceeded only 
by the native white population of native parents, far surpassing 
the other racial elements. In New York the foreign born exceed 
any of the other racial groups. In Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, 
Newark, and Jersey City the foreign born are more numerous 
than the native white population of native parents. 

Census of 1910, Abstract, p. 95. 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 9 

The percentage of Negroes does not amount to 11% in any of 
the Northern cities, and in the largest cities it ranges from only 
2% to 6%. Nevertheless, if the Negro population is considered 
in absolute numbers, it constitutes a "city within a city," larger 
than most of the cities of the South. The Negro city in New 
York is confined to a much smaller area than cities where the 
total population corresponds to it. We often hear it stated that 
foreigners do not have as much prejudice against the Negroes as 
do Americans. This statement seems strange when we examine 
a city Uke New York, with its heterogeneous cosmopolitan popu- 
lation, and find so much feeling against the Negro. 

TABLE IV 

Percentage of Negroes Born Outside the Border and Northern States 
From 1890 to 1910, Also the Percentage of Urban and Rural for 1910.* 

Pennsylvania Urban Rural 

1910 1900 1890 1910 1910 

Native Negro Population 191,935 155,981 107,(526 154,560 37,375 

Born in State 84,960 70,365 58,681 63,605 21,355 

Born outside State 106,975 85,616 48,945 90,955 16,020 

Per cent, outside State 55.7 54.9 45.5 58.8 42.9 

New York 

Native Negro Population 121,340 95,680 68,543 104,934 16,406 

Born in State 49,750 44,614 40,177 40,151 9,599 

Born outside State 71,590 51,066 28,366 64,783 6,807 

Per cent, outside State 59.0 53.4 41.4 61.7 41.5 

New Jersey 

Native Negro Population 88,273 69,385 47,362 64,143 24,130 

Born in State 37,017 31,663 26,874 23,502 13,515 

Born outside State 51,256 37,722 20,488 40,641 10,615 

Per cent, outside State 58.1 54.4 43.3 63.4 44.0 

Ohio 

Native Negro Population 110,797 96,418 86,771 81,676 29,121 

Born in State 59,194 56,232 50,568 39,349 19,845 

Born outside State 51,603 40,186 36,203 42,327 9,276 

"Per cent, outside State 46.6 41.7 41.7 51.8 31.9 



< Census of 1910. 



10 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

Urban Rural 



West Virginia 


1910 


1900 


1890 


1910 


1910 


Native Negro Population 


G4,091 


43,475 


32,686 


15,353 


48,738 


Born in State 


27,160 


21,420 


18,189 


7,202 


19,958 


Bom outside State 


36,931 


22,055 


14,497 


8,151 


28,780 


Per cent, outside State 


57.6 


50.7 


44.4 


53.1 


59.1 



Virginia 

Native Negro Population 670,800 660,570 635,673 158,031 512,769 

Born in State 623,472 625,544 616,513 136,203 487,269 

Born outside State 47,328 35,026 19,160 21,828 25,500 

Per cent, outside State 7.1 5.3 3.0 13.8 5.0 

Illinois 



Native Negro Population 


108,121 


84,468 


56,507 


84,758 


23,363 


Born in State 


35,917 


30,022 


23,437 


24,730 


11,187 


Born outside State 


72,204 


54,446 


33,070 


60,028 


12,176 


Per cent, outside State 


66.8 


64.5 


58.5 


70.8 


52.1 


Maryland 












Native Negro Population 


231,799 


234,761 


215,388 


98,849 


132,950 


Born in State 


201,594 


208,672 


196,075 


77,637 


123,957 


Born outside State 


30,205 


26,089 


19,313 


21,212 


8,993 


Per cent, outside State 


13.0 


11.1 


9.0 


21.5 


6.8 


Indiana 












Native Negro Population 


60,223 


57,441 


45,466 


48,351 


11,872 


Born in State 


25,224 


25,304 


21,215 


18,727 


6,497 


Born outside State 


34,999 


32,137 


24,251 


29,624 


5,375 


Per cent, outside State 


58.1 


55.9 


53.3 


61.3 


45.3 


Delaware 












Native Negro Population 


31,146 


30,668 


28,362 


11,142 


20,004 


Born in State 


22,668 


23,274 


22,426 


6,806 


15,862 


Born outside State 


8,478 


7,394 


5,936 


4,336 


4,142 


Per cent, outside State 


27.2 


24.1 


20.9 


38.9 


20.7 



Tennessee 

Native Negro Population 472,989 480,151 430,751 150,435 322,554 

Born in State 393,173 405,007 363,058 102,362 289,811 

Born outside State 79,816 75,144 67,693 47,073 32,743 

Per cent, outside State 16.9 15.7 15.7 31.3 10.2 

Kentucky 

Native Negro Population 261,590 284,634 268,057 106,577 155,013 

Born in State 233,454 260,025 246,225 90,621 142,833 

Born outside State 28,136 24,609 21,832 15,956 12,180 

Per cent, outside State 10.8 8.6 8.1 15.0 7.9 



Race Relatio7iship in Border and Northern States 11 

In the above table I have taken some of the Border and North- 
ern States, those that show the greatest fluctuation of the Negro 
population, to find out the percentage of Negroes born outside 
the State in which they reside. In this we find that the largest 
per cent, of Negroes in Illinois, New York, Indiana, New Jersey, 
West Virginia, and Pennsylvania were born outside of the State 
in which they reside. In Ohio, Tennessee, Delaware, Maryland, 
Virginia, and Kentucky the greater part were born in the State in 
which they reside. Ilhnois heads the hst with 66.8% born out- 
side of the State, and Virginia falls to the bottom with only 7.1%. 
From this it is easy to see which way the Negroes are migrating. 
It also appears that Negroes have become more mobile each 
decade. In West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arkansas the percent- 
age of increase of Negroes was above that of the whites, but in 
all the other Southern States there was a small relative decrease 
in the proportion of Negroes to whites in the population. 

TABLE V 
Negroes Born in one State and Residing in Another.^ 



Virginia 

Maryland 

Delaware 

District of Columbia 

West Virginia 

North Carolina 

South Carohna 

Georgia 

Florida 

Kentucky 

Tennessee 

Alabama 

In the above table I have taken Pennsylvania, New York, and 

Ohio to find out from which States they receive the largest 

number of their migratory Negroes, and how many they give 

in exchange. Just arglance at the table is enough to satisfy any 

one that thousands of Negroes are leaving the South, and but 

few are going into the South. Of course these three States have 

6 Census of 1910. 



Pennsylvania 


New York 


Ohio 


Gained 


Lost 


Gained 


Lost 


Gained 


Lost 


from 


to 


from 


to 


from 


to 


48,995 


1,092 


29,157 


570 


10,195 


283 


20,030 


1,621 


3,510 


343 


737 


130 


5,798 


952 


463 


126 


35 


16 


2,937 


848 


2,080 


435 


284 


285 


2,260 


554 


345 


63 


2,358 


1,176 


9,735 


264 


10,283 


161 


3,884 


82 


2,113 


107 


6,698 


48 


1,102 


27 


1,578 


232 


3,792 


101 


1,549 


104 


393 


198 


1,257 


191 


164 


98 


992 


161 


873 


49 


18,835 


805 


1,065 


179 


648 


79 


3,481 


366 


545 


213 


536 


53 


781 


229 



12 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

within their borders Negroes born in all the Southern States, 
but I thought it sufficient to work out only those States furnishing 
the largest number. In 1890 there were 241,000 Southern born 
Negroes living out of the South. In 1900 there were 349,000. 
From 1900 to 1910, 2,100 Northern Negroes went South. The 
total number of Negroes living in the North, but born in the 
South, was in 1910, 440,534. At the same date there were only 
41,489 Negroes born in the North living in the South. Need we 
wonder, then, that there is a change in conditions with this great 
army of blacks marching into the North? Yet, there were but 
1,078,000 Negroes north of Mason and Dixon's Line in 1910, 
or 1.72% of the total population of the North. In no geographic 
division outside of the South did the Negroes constitute as much 
as 3 per cent, of the total population in 1910. The highest 
percentage, 2.2, w-as in the IMiddle Atlantic division. Outside of 
the South there was no State in which the percentage of Negroes 
was as high as 5%. Negroes formed 4.8% of the population of 
Missouri; 3.5% of New Jersey; and 3.2% of Kansas. Despite 
the fact that the Negro population of the North appears as a 
negligible quanity at that time, it had reached sufficient propor- 
tions to call forth opposition. 

In 1880 sixteen percent, of the Negro population, that is over 
1,000,000 persons, were living in States other than those in which 
they were ])orn; this migrating population increased 100,000 be- 
tween 1880-1890. Between 1890 and 1900 it increased still 
faster, reaching in the later year 1,370,000. Between 1900-1910 
it increased 240,000. Between 1860-1910 the Northern Negro 
population increased from 344,719 to 1,078,336, indicating a 
migration of at least 200,000 persons in addition to the natural 
increase. Mr. John C. Rose says: "There has been a consider- 
able movement of Negroes, during the decade, northward across 
the Mason and Dixon 's Line and the Ohio river. Yet in the 
North as a whole the Negroes do not even yet number one 
in every fifty of the inhabitants."*^ 

According to the census of 1910, the net loss of Negroes from 
the South to the North and West was 399,045; yet the Southern 
whites show a net loss of only 46,839. Among the most striking 
things shown by the last two census are the small increases and 

" America Ecomomic Revieiv, June, 1914. 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 13 

decreases of the Negro population in the Border States. Of the 
six States in which the Negro population decreased during the 
last ten years, four of them — Maryland, Tennessee, Missouri, 
and Kentucky — are Border States. The increases for Virginia 
and Delaware were so very small that they can almost be classed 
with the retarded group. When we compare the movements 
of the white and Negro populations in the counties of the Border 
States we see some striking contrasts. For example, in the 98 
counties of Virginia, the whites gained in 84, while the Negroes 
lost in 68. Similar contrasts appear in the figures for the other 
Border States. This shows us that the movements of Negroes 
and whites in these States are quite different. But when we go 
to a State like Alabama, we find that for the last decade, out of 
her 67 counties, the whites increased in 51 and the Negroes in 43. 
We also find that the rate of increase in the Negro population is 
about four times as rapid in the cities farther North as it is in 
those nearer the Mason and Dixon's Line. One half of all the 
Negroes in the thirty-two States, North, East, and West, are in 
the cities of Washington, New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, 
Chicago, St. Louis, Pittsburg, Kansas City, Cincinnati, and 
Indianapolis. 

We have seen from the census of 1910, table V, that up to that 
time, thousands of Negroes had migrated North. For some time 
we have been living under abnormal conditions. When the war 
clouds broke in Europe with its far reaching effects, our country 
did not escape and later entered into the struggle. The European 
War immediately caused a scarcity of labor in the North. 
Immigrants from the warring nations ceased to land on our 
shores, and many of those who were already here, returned to 
their native countries to fight. The demand for supplies from 
across the seas put our industrial plants to the test, and calls for 
labor were imperative. Before any one was aware of the fact 
Moses' army had l^egun to march out of Egypt. Thousands of 
Negroes were leaving the South for the North. This migration 
continued throughout the War and to-day no one knows how 
many Negroes crossed into the North. James W. Poe, President 
of the Colored Patriotic League, estimated that one third of a 
million Negro laborers had moved from twelve Southern States 
in less than a year, (June 23, 1917) and that at least 73,000 had 



14 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

found their way into Pennsylvania. He gives the figures of the 
exodus by States as follows: Virginia, 49,768; Mississippi, 35,291 ; 
Tennessee, 22,633; Florida, 10,291; Georgia, 48,897; Kentucky, 
21,855; South Carohna, 27,560; Texas, 10,870; North Carolina, 
35,576; Arkansas, 23,628; Oklahoma, 5,836. The estimate 
made for the Government by G. R. Suavely for the State of 
Alabama, is 75,000 or 8.3% of the Negro population. This 
number, he says, migrated within eighteen months. 

During the eighteen months, the time when the Negro migra- 
tion was the most extensive, the Negro population of certain 
Northern cities is said to have increased from one to four fold. 
On July 12,. 1917 it was estimated that Cleveland's Negro 
population had been increased by an influx of 10,000 Negroes 
from the South. During the year ending September 1917, it is 
reported that 25,000 Negroes entered Cincinnati; and for the 
same year Pittsburg found itself with a new Negro population of 
18,550. The Negro population of Detroit jumped from 8,000 
to 25,000, and the population of Philadelphia was increased by 
40,000 Negroes from the South. 

Dr. Du Bois conjectured that altogether about 250,000 Negro 
workmen had left the South up to June 1917. If these Negroes 
moved their families, it would imply that something like three- 
fourths of a million of Negroes have moved North. Other 
estinjates, based upon the records of insurance companies, 
railway ticket offices, and other sources, range from 250,000 to 
750,000. After weighing all the estimates, the result seems to 
show that from 400,000 to 500,000 Negroes have traveled North 
during the period of migration which ran at high tide during the 
years of 1916-1917. Of course these estimates are not much 
more than a guess and how many of these Negroes returned 
South no one knows. But, after all is said, I think we can say 
there are nearly 2,000,000 Negroes now living in the North. 

2. Now let us examine the type of Negroes which is migrating 
North. In this I wish to ascertain whether the Negroes going 
North are rural or urban, blacks or mulattoes, illiterate or 
educated, for I am sure this has something to do with the 
race relationship in the North. 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 15 

TABLE VI 
Growth of Negro Urban Population.^ 

Percentage of Urban and Percentage of 

Rural Negro Population Increase by Decades 

1910 1900 1910-00 1900-00 

Negro population in U.S., 100.0 100.0 11.2 19.0 

Rural 72.6 77.3 4.5 13.7 

Urban 27.4 22.7 34.2 35.2 

TABLE VII 
Rural and urban Negro Population in the South, North, and West for 

1900-1910.8 
Rural 
1910 Percent. 1900 Percent. 

United States 7,138,534 100.0 6,829,873 100.0 

South 6,894,972 95.6 6,558,173 96.0 

North 232,708 3.0 271,700 4.0 

West 10,854 1.5 » • 

Urban 
United States 2,689,229 100.0 2,004,121 100.0 

South 1,854,455 69.0 1,364,796 68.0 

North 794,966 29.6 639,325 32.0 

West 39,808 1.4 » » 

We see, from the above tables, that the Negroes are rapidly 
moving toward the cities. In 1860, less than 10% of the total 
Negro population lived in cities of 2,500 and over, but by 1910, 
27.4% lived in such cities. In 1910 there were 38,992 fewer 
Negroes living in the rural districts of the North than in 1900, 
and 336,799 in the South. In 1910 there were 489,659 more 
Negroes living in the cities in the South than in 1900, and 155,641 
in the North. 

Nine Northern and Border cities— Boston, New York, 
Philadelphia, Chicago, Cincinnati, Evansville, Indianapolis, 
Pittsburg, and St. Louis— were chosen to show the tendency of 
the Negroes to leave the rural districts and go to the cities. In 
these it was found that between 1880 and 1890, the Negro popu- 
lation increased 36.2%, a rate three times that of the rate of 
increase in the Negro population of the United States. Between 
1890 and 1900, the movement became more pronounced and the 

' Census of 1910, Abstract, p. 92. 

* Idem, Supplementary Arialysis, pp. 204-205. 

» In Census of 1900 figures for "West" are included in "North". 



16 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

Negro population increased 74.4%, or more than four times the 
rate of increase of the Negro population in the United States. 
Between 1900 and 1910, the increase was 37.4%, or more 
than three times that of the Negro population in the United 
States. 

In fifteen representative Southern cities it was also noticed 
that the Negro population increased more rapidly than the 
normal rate of increase all over the country, but during the same 
period the increase in the Northern cities was larger. In these 
it is shown that there is a steady migration of Negroes from 
rural to urban districts. If there is steady flow of Negroes from 
rural to urban districts, and such a large number of Negroes 
migrating from the South to the North, and 95.50% of the 
Negroes living in the South are rural, then, it seems to me, a 
large per cent, of the Southern Negroes migrating North must 
be rural. 

TABLE VIII 

Percentage of Mulattoes in the States of the United States — 1910.'" 



States 


Mulattoes States 


Mulattoes States Mulattoes 


Maine 


45.9— 


North Dakota 


25.4— 


Mississippi 


16.9 


New Hampshire" 


36.9— 


South Dakota 


36.2— 


Arkansas 


18.4 


Vermont 


26.9— 


Nebraska 


27.1— 


Louisiana 


21.4 


Massachusetts 


36.7 


Kansas 


29.9 


Oklahoma 


28.6 


Rhode Island 


33.4 


Delaware 


11.9— 


Texas 


18.1 


Connecticut 


24.7— 


Maryland 


18.6 


Montana 


33.3 


New York 


22.8 


District of C, 


34.9 


Idaho 


34.7— 


New Jersey 


15.8 


Virginia 


33.2 


Wyoming 


13.1— 


Pennsylvania 


19.2— 


West Virginia 


32.5 


Colorado 


31.8— 


Ohio 


35.2— 


North Carolina 


20.7 


New Mexico 


27.0— 


Indiana 


24.1— 


South Carolina 


16.1 


Arizona 


22.3— 


Illinois 


33.8 


Georgia 


17.3 


Utah 


25.3— 


Michigan 


47.0— 


Florida 


16.0 


Nevada 


37.0— 


Wisconsin 


39.4— 


Kentucky 


25.2 


Washington 


30.4— 


Minnesota 


36.9— 


Tennessee 


25.1 


Oregon 


29.1— 


Iowa 


24.3— 


Alabama 


16.7 


California 


36.3— 


Missouri 


28.4 











'^Census of 1910, vol 1, p. 
1910 than in 1890. 



159. — A smaller percentage of mulattoes in 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 17 

According to tabic VII, Michigan has the distinction of having 
the highest percentage of mulattoes, but she is followed closely 
by Maine. Delaware may be proud of having the smallest 
percentage, 11.9%. Wyoming comes next with 13.1%. Except- 
ing the last two named states, it is clear that the smallest per 
cent, of mulattoes is in the "true" South. Then, if there are so 
many more "black" Negroes in the South than mulattoes, it 
seems reasonable, according to a priori arguments, to suppose 
that a very large per cent, of the Negroes who migrate North is 
black. 

According to the census reports for 1910, the percentage of 
mulattoes in the Negro population has increased from 12% to 
29.9%, or about 74%,, since 1870; and from 15.2% to 20.9%, or 
about 37.5%, since 1890. 

There is something about the white race that causes the "black" 
Negro to be repugnant to it. We do not mind so much coming 
in contact with the bright, shiny-faced mulatto, but when it 
comes to the flat-nosed, thick-lipped type there is greater 
aversion. I cannot help feeling that the Northern whites coming 
in contact with this black, thick-lipped, flat-nosed variety from 
the South is responsible in some measure, at least, for their change 
in relationship. The Negro living in the small Northern or 
Western town, where there are very few Negroes, gets along very 
well, but just as soon as there is a new migration from the South 
conditions are no longer Utopian; and were we to move one-half 
of the Negroes from the South into the North, we would create 
a problem far more serious and complicated than any that has 
ever existed in the Southern States. Almost everywhere I 
went in the North I heard complaints against the black Negroes 
from the South. Often I heard it said, "those who come from 
the South are so black. " 



18 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

'J^ABLE IX 

Illiterate Negroes in the Population Ten Years of Age 

AND over by States — 1910." 

State Per cent. State Per cent. 

New York 5.0 Delaware 25. G 

New Jersey 9.9 Maryland 23.4 

Pennsylvania 9.1 District of Columbia 13.5 

Ohio H.l West Virginia 20.3 

Indiana 13.7 Virginia 30.0 

Illinois 10.5 North Carolina 31.9 

Michigan 5.7 South Carolina 38.7 

Wisconsin 4.5 Georgia 36.5 

Minnesota 3.4 Florida 25.5 

Iowa 10.3 Kentucky 27.6 

Missouri 17.4 Tennessee 27.3 

North Dakota 4.8 Alabama 40.1 

South Dakota 5.5 Mississippi 35.6 

Nebraska 7.2 Arkansas 26.4 

Kansas 12.0 Louisiana 48.7 

Texas 24.6 Oklahoma 17.7 

From Tabic IX I have omitted the New England, Moii ntain, 
and Pacific States. This table shows that the Southern States 
have the highest per cent, of illiterates. Louisiana takes the 
lead with 48.4%. As we approach the North and West the 
percentage gradually grows smaller. 

TABLE X 

Illiterates in the Population ten Years of Age and Over 1910.^- 

Native White of 
Cities Native Parents 

Boston 0.1 

New York 0.2 

Philadelphia 0.5 

St. Louis 0.6 

Kansas Citj^ 0.4 

Indianapolis 0.9 

Cincinnati 1.0 

Chicago 0.2 

Columbus 1.3 

Washington 0.6 

Louisville 1.3 

Baltimore 0.6 



Native White of 






Foreign Pai 


rents 


Foreign Born 


Negro 


0.2 




10.0 


3.5 


0.4 




13.2 


3.6 


0.6 




12.9 


7.8 


0.6 




11.4 


12.4 


0.4 




8.9 


9.6 


0.5 




11.3 


12.4 


0.5 




9.6 


14.3 


0.3 




10.0 


4.0 


0.9 




12.6 


8.7 


0.4 




8.2 


13.5 


1.0 




9.5 


18.7 


0.6 




12.0 


13.2 



" Census of 1910, Abstract, p. 245. 
'2 Census of 1910, Abstract, p. 250. 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern Stales 19 

I n the above table I took a few of the largest cities to compare 
the percentage of Negro illiterates with the native whites of native 
parents and with native white of foreign parents, also, foreign 
born. We can gain very little by a comparison of Negro illiter- 
ates with foreign born, as many of the foreign born have not had 
the advantages of our schools. In every case the percentage 
of illiteracy is higher among the Negroes than among either the 
native whites of native parents or the native whites of foreign 
parents. In cities where they have separate schools for the two 
races, we can account for part of their illiteracy on the grounds 
that the Negro schools are often not as good as those for the 
whites, but where the schools are not separate, having the same 
laws, management, teachers, etc., we shall have to say part of it, 
at least, is due to migration of illiterate Negroep from the South. 
The presence of these illiterate blacks in the North, from the 
South, stirs up race feeUng more and more. Large numbers of 
them go North, seeking freedom, where they can have their 
"rights," and often they mistake liberty for hcense — as a result, 
the more Negroes the sharper the expression of prejudice. 

The whites, who in 1910 constituted 89.3% of the total 
population ten years of age and over, contributed 40.4% of the 
ilhterates. In 1910, 36.1% of the ilhterate Negroes was in the 
rural districts and 17.6,^ was urban. Ilhteracy among the 
Negroes, however, is declining rapidly in all the states. In 
many sections the Negroes are striving harder to gain an educa- 
tion than the whites. 

3. Now let us turn to the third part of this chapter and try 
to find the causes of the migration of the Negro to the North. 

Most of the Negroes, perhaps over three-fourths, have gone 
North for economic reasons. This fact was brought out in 
every investigation made. Of course quite a bit of this is due 
to the work of labor agents. Before the European War labor 
agents did a thriving business; according to one agent, positions 
had been given to more than 15,000 Southern Negro girls and 
women during eighteen years. After the European War began 
labor agents were sent South to get Negro laborers and ship them 
North. The labor agents were unscrupulous as to the means 
used for soliciting Negroes to go North to work. They issued 
attractive circulars containing such phrases as, "Let's go back 



20 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

North where there arc no labor troubles, no strikes, no lockouts; 
large coal, good wages, fair treatment. Two weeks' pay; good 
houses. We ship you and your household goods. All colored 
ministers can go free. Will advance you money if necessary. 
Scores of men have written us thanking us for sending them. Go 
now while you have a chance." These circulars and the news 
of the Negro migration reached almost every Negro cabin in the 
South. The promise of free transportation on a special train to 
Avork that would pay them from twice to five times as much as 
they were making at home excited many a Negro throughout 
Dixie. Of course the labor agents did not care so much for the 
quality as they did the quantity. They received their pay "by 
the head" and it was to their interest to get large numbers to go 
North. It seems, however, that a majority of the migrants 
were unmarried men between the ages of 18 and 30. 

Neither the labor organizations of the North nor the wx^althy 
farmers of the South wished to see these Negroes migrate. Often 
the Negroes are used as strike breakers, as in East St. Louis. 
This often results in serious rioting. On the other hand, this 
migration left many of the wealthy farmers in the South without 
a sufficient supply of labor to cultivate their farms. It is re- 
ported that many acres of good farming land have been idle for 
the last four years as a result of the migration of the Negroes. 
These farmers are largely responsible for the laws being passed 
prohibiting the wholesale exportation of labor out of the different 
States in the South. These Southern employers have been 
raising a pathetic cry about the great loss the migration has cost 
and it is estimated that it represents an economic loss to the 
South of not less than $200,000,000 in crop wealth. But thcro 
is another element in the South, whose voice we seldom hear 
through the public press, — the white laborers pressed down for 
a hundred years by economic competition with the Negro, have 
been given a new hope by the present migration, and wherever 
<h(nr voices are heard, whether around the moonshine still or 
the cross-roads store, they say with one accord, "Let them go." 

A few, if not many, of these Negroes have left their homes in 
the South for fear of mob violence. Of course the Negro is not 
in any great danger of being lynched unless he transgresses the 
"law." And while it is not the chief cause of migration, never- 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 21 

theless, it is reported that there was a great hegira of Negroes 
after the riot at Wilmington, North CaroHna, August, 1898, and 
the one at Atlanta, Georgia, 190G. Also, there was an exodus 
from the North to the South after the East St. Louis and Chicago 
riots. 

Another cause of Negro migration is the desire for more 
political freedom. In most of the Southern States, only the 
better class of Negroes vote, while the ignorant, poor Negroes 
are disfranchised. While I do not think the Southern Negro, as 
a rule, cares very much about political parties, yet some of them 
do, and seek a state where they can have more political freedom. 
It has been proven more than once that politicians have Negroes 
sent North to swing the elections. In 1916 Ohio, Indiana, and 
Michigan are said to have received hundreds of Negro "laborers" 
imported from the South, whose chief reason for being in the 
North was to swing the election. 

Usually the Negroes are "wild to go Norf, " and usually take 
advantage of the first opportunity. The South may be loath 
to give them up and the labor organizations may be opposed to 
their coming North, still they come, and still the South has them 
by the millions. Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia have three- 
tenths of all the Negroes in the United States. The South has 
77% and the North 23%. Washington county, Mississippi, has 
more Negroes than Maine, Minnesota, Montana, Oregon, 
Wyoming, Vermont, Utah, New Hampshire, Idaho, North 
Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and California all combined. 
She has more than either West Virginia, Delaware, or Oklahoma. 
Negroes constitute 62.9% of the population of the Mississippi 
alluvial region. 



CHAPTER II 
SEGREGATION IN CITIES AND THE COUNTRY 

In this chapter I expect to deal specifically with segregation of 
Negroes in city blocks, districts, and wards, and in rural districts. 
I shall leave the segregation in schools, parks, hotels, etc., for 
the following chapters as they can best be treated there. 

1. We have seen from the preceding chapter that thousands 
of Negroes have migrated North. Let us follow the Negroes to 
their Northern homes and examine the conditions there. In 
their Northern homes we find them dwelling in more or less 
segregated districts. This segregation wdthin the city is caused 
by striking forces working both within and without the body of 
Negroes themselves. The Negro naturally desires to be with 
other Negroes. They are very gregarious. The consciousness 
of kind in racial, family, and friendly ties seems to bind them 
closer to one another than their white fellow-citizens, but 
later, as the Negro develops, he wishes to get a better place to 
dwell — then the trouble comes. The white immigrant can shuffle 
off the coil of his Continental condition and soon lose his identity 
in American society, but, not so with the Negro; his black or 
brown skin betrays him and he must take a "Negro's place." 
So there grows up in the cities of the North a distinct Negro 
world, isolated from many of the impulses of common life and 
little understood by the white world about it. About the only 
white people who know or care anything about these Negro 
districts are the politicians, who understand them as well as the 
seamen knows the depths and shallows of the sea. Negroes 
continue to come from the South and settle in the Negro districts. 
Thus the Negro ghetto is growing up in all the Northern cities. 
New York has its Harlem districts of over 40,000 within about 
eighteen city blocks; Philadelphia, its Seventh Ward; Chicago, 
its State Street; Washington, its Northwest Neighborhood; 
Baltimore, its Druid Hill Avenue; and Louisville, its Chestnut 
Street and "Smoketown. " The white communities surrounding 

22 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 23 

or bordering the Negro districts frequently misjudge these 
communities, as is seen in the sobriquets of " Monkeybottom, " 
"Needmore," "Lickskillet," "Buzzard's Alley," " Niggertown. " 
"Chinch-row," and, as indicated, the people who dwell in these 
neighborhoods are all lumped by popular opinion into one class. 
We usually generalize concerning the Negro and individualize 
concerning the whites. If one Negro commits a crime we 
usually blame all the Negroes, but if a white man commits the 
same crime he alone is blamed. 

Mr, Baker, writing on the conditions of the Negro in the North, 
says: "In aboHtion times these Negroes were much regarded. 
Many of them attained and kept a certain real position among 
the whites; they were even accorded unusual opportunities and 
favors. * * * At a time when the North was passionately con- 
cerned in the abohtion of slavery the colour of his skin sometimes 
gave the Negro special advant'ages, even honours. 

"For years after the war this condition continued; then a 
stream of migration of Southern Negroes began to appear, at first 
a mere rivulet, but latterly increasing in volume, until to-day 
all our Northern cities have swarming coloured colonies. Owing 
to the increase of the Negro population and for other causes 
which I have mentioned, sentiment in the North toward the 
Negro has been undergoing a swift change. "^^ During abolition 
times the Negroes in the North were highly respected and were ac- 
corded unusual favors and opportunities. But later the Negroes 
began to go and settle in the Northern cities, overflowing their 
boundaries in every direction, increasing more rapidly than any 
other single element of the urban population. Soon outrageous 
assaults, robberies, murders, and rapes began to occur, and with 
these the Northern whites became as hostile as the Southern 
whites, until to-day, the Negro in the Northern city is almost 
completely outside the pale of the white man's sympathy and 
there is nothing more tragic than the conditions of the swarming 
Negro population. These things have so changed the North 
that to-day we find men openly advocating segregation. Mr. 
J. J. Lindley, in discussing the conditions of the Negroes in New 
York, says: "Segregation to my mind is the best way to 
preserve the environment of both races. * * * jj^ 

^^ Following the Color Line, pp. 217-218. 



24 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

the upper section of this city there is a colony of colored people 
which has grown within the past twelve years from 10 inhab- 
itants to nearly 100,000. * * * As long as the 
white people do not annoy them there is peace and harmony. 
Their one wish is to be let alone. When the Negro began 
settling there in that section of the city, the white residents re- 
sented it, and tried to stop the influx, but greedy property- 
owners kept on selling leases and property to the Negroes, so 
that now it is purely a Negro colony, and one of the largest in 
any of the Northern cities. How much better it is that they 
should be there in one locality than scattered all over the city. "'^ 

In this, Mr. Lindley not only expresses his own sentiment but 
he indicates two other things. He indicates that the whites are 
averse to living in Negro neighborhoods. Indeed, the Negro 
settlements are usually bordered by or surrounded by the 
gibberish-speaking Italians and other foreigners. Really, the 
Negro comes to make his home among a people who are foreign 
to him. He is not to any great extent with the descendants of 

the men who years ago fought for his freedom he speaks 

mournfully of wishing that he might take his chances with the 

American but he is living among many races, the most of 

which have lately come to this country and have no traditions 
of friendliness. To him their language is a barbarous jargon 
and their customs utterly foreign. Often he feels as if he had 
been mysteriously transplanted into an unfriendly foreign 
country. Mr. Lindley also states that the "greedy property- 
owners kept on selling leases and property to the Negroes." 
This seems to say that the Negroes were paying higher prices for 
the leases and property than the whites. It is evident that 
these "greedy property-owners" would not have continued these 
sales unless more money was coming to them. I have often 
found that Negroes have to pay higher rents and get poorer 
houses than their white neighbors. 

In most of the Northern cities there is no law on the statute- 
books forbidding the Negro living where he pleases, but they 
are segregated very definitely. Some people wish to call this 
separation, but between segregation and separation there are 
broad and essential differences. Segregation comes by force, 

" New Republic, p. 199. 



Rqce Relationship in Border and Northern States 25 

separation by natural choice. Some one has said that segrega- 
tion is the voice of the stronger, saying to the weaker: "Thou 
shalt not." Separation is the voice of the self-confident saying: 
"I prefer to do this." While there is no segregation law there 
is the all-powerful law of sentiment which is stronger than a law 
on a statute-book. It has power to put any law in force or to 
make any law null and void. This law is at work in the North 
and it says to the Negro: "Thou shalt not live here," and he 
speedily moves. In Philadelphia a Negro rented a home and 
moved his furniture and family in. That night he had hundreds 
of callers and the next day he moved out. In the 2500 block of 
Pine Street, one Negro moved in and others were moving in. 
As a result houses were stoned and two wagonloads of furniture 
were burned and a declaration was passed that no Negroes 
would be tolerated in that vicinity. 

Within the cities in Pennsylvania the Negroes are usually 
very definitely segregated. Often the segregation does not 
appear as much as it really is because the Negro population is 
cut into by ward hnes. The largest group of Negroes in Phila- 
delphia are in the 7th and 30th wards. Philadelphia has a 
segregation peculiar to itself. Many of the well-to-do whites 
live on Chestnut and Walnut streets while the Negroes live on 
the small streets just behind them. In some places the Negroes 
are completely surrounded by the whites, the whites living on 
the wide out streets and the Negroes living on the small streets 
on the interior. It was found that 46 houses sheltered 123 
families — 715 men, women, and children — 75 of the couples 
were married, 20 were of uncertain marriages, and 28 lived in the 
common law relations. Yet if one of these couples had tried to 
move into a white district of the city where they could live like 
human beings, a race riot would have been the outcome. Rev. 
Dr. Carl E. Grammer says: "My heart burns when the renting 
of a house in certain sections of Philadelphia will cause a riot 
and a colored man is 'accidentally ' shot on his way to the police 
station." 

Conditions in New York, Chicago, Pittsburg, Boston, Cin- 
cinnati, Cleveland, Detroit and many other Northern cities 
are similar to Philadelphia. In all the Northern cities the 
Negroes have built up "quarters" which they occupy to the 



26 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

increasing exclusion of other classes of people, for now even the 
foreigners object to living among the Negroes. In these districts 
the Negroes live chiefly in rooming houses or tenements, usually 
containing several families. Many of the houses are dilapidated 
dwellings, Avith the plaster sagging f*rom the lath, the paper torn 
off, the windows broken, and the rooms dark, damp, stuffy and 
unsanitary. In these houses the Negroes sleep not only in the 
bedrooms, but also in the basements, attics, dining rooms and 
kitchens. Often there are as many as six and sometimes more 
sleeping in one room. Sometimes they have two shifts, each 
section being allowed to use the room and beds for twelve hours, 
when the other section comes in and uses them. Back South the 
Negro might have been oppressed, but he could have his home 
located in a comfortable place with plenty of light and air. At 
least, he did not have to live in one room in a congested slum and 
pay excessive rents. 

What does it mean to live in these segregated districts? I 
think it is clear that the cruel iron hand of public sentiment 
forces both the good and bad Negroes, regardless of their educa- 
tion, refinement, or financial standing, to dwell together in the 
Negro districts. It is also clear that they have to pay higher 
rents and get poorer houses than their white neighbors. These 
Negro districts usually have less effective police protection than 
the white districts. Their fire protection is inadequate; their 
streets are often unpaved; they often have poorer sewerage; but 
they do have everything that goes to bring about unsanitation, 
sickness, death, crime, vice and destruction. The "red-light" 
districts are usually located within or near their boundaries. 
They may protest as they quite often do, Ijut no one heeds their 
cry. They are forced to witness sin in all of its worst forms. 
They know the white man in his worst. During the still hours 
of midnight they hear the white man's automobile puffing its 
smoke through their dingy streets. They know the rest. 
Often in many of their quarters, drunken men and women lie in 
the streets unmolested. Murder is common. Vice dens stand 
open. Indeed, it is a pandemonium where sin is crowned 
"Lord of All." 

2. We have examined segregation by public sentiment, now, 
let us turn and examine the segregation ordinances in cities. 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 27 

The preamble of the Louisville ordinance was as follows: "To 
prevent conflict and ill-feeling between the white and colored 
races in the city of Louisville and to preserve the public peace 
and promote the general Avelfare by making reasonable provisions 
requiring, as far as practicable the use of separate blocks for 
residence, place of abode and place of assembly by white and 
colored people respectively." Then follows the ordinance. 
The ordinances of all the cities where segregation has been in 
force expressed this as their purpose. There are some differences 
in the ordinances; in general they are of four types: (1) The 
ordinances passed by Baltimore apply only to all-white and all- 
Negro blocks, making it against the law for a Negro to move into 
a white block and vice versa. (2) The type passed by Virginia 
enables the cities to divide into segregated districts. This makes 
it unlawful for a Negro to move into a white district. (3) The 
type passed by Richmond, before the Statewide segregation act, 
legislates for the whole city, declaring that a block is "white" 
whenever a majority of the residents are white and "colored" 
when a majority of the residents are Negroes. According to this 
law a Negro can move into a mixed block when a majority of 
those residing in that block are Negroes. (4) Norfolk goes a 
step farther and determines the color of the block not only by the 
occupancy of the property, but also according to the ownership 
of the property within the block. In all the ordinances, an 
exception is made in regard to domestic servants residing with 
their employers. 

Baltimore was the first city to enact a segregation ordinance, 
which was done in 1910. It was introduced by Councilman 
West and consequently bore his name. For some years there 
had been friction between the races in the city, resulting from 
colored people moving in white blocks. This friction reached its 
climax in 1910, when a colored man moved into the 1800 
block of McCuUok Street, which was a white block. The whites 
immediately determined to stop futher encroachment of Negroes 
on white blocks. This brought the first ordinance in 1910. The 
next year a test case held this ordinance invalid. Immediately 
another was passed. Soon some doubt arose about it and an- 
other was passed in May, 1911. This one was held to be uncon- 
stitutional, so September 25, 1913, they passed the last one. 



28 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

which seems to be holding. Thus Baltimore passed four acts 
within three years. Each ordinance seems to have met with 
vigorous opposition. The National Association for the Advance- 
ment of Colored People twice won against the measure, the last 
time before the Supreme Court of Maryland. It is difficult to 
say just what caused Baltimore to pass these ordinances, more 
than above. She is a border city, the gateway to the South as 
well as to the North. She had a smaller percentage of Negroes 
in 1910 than in 1900, having 15.2 per cent, in 1910 and 15.6 per 
cent, in 1900. But Baltimore was a growing city between 1890 
and 1900, and during that time there was a rush of rural Negroes 
into the city. This caused race prejudice to develop and was 
probably the chief cause of the acts. 

Other cities followed the pattern of Baltimore. Richmond, 
Norfolk, Ashland, Virginia, followed in 1911. In 1912, Virginia 
passed Statewide segregation, which permitted cities and towns, 
so desiring, to segregate the races. The police justice declared 
the Norfolk ordinance to be unconstitutional, and it was carried 
to the higher court. Roanoke and Atlanta followed in 1913. 
The Supreme Court declared the Atlanta ordinance to be uncon- 
stitutional, that to prevent members of the two races from living 
in the same block was "to deny the inherent right of a person to 
acquire, enjoy or dispose of property, and for this reason is a 
violation of the due process clause of the Federal and State 
Constitutions."!^ 

Winston-Salem and some other smaller cities passed segrega- 
tion ordinances in 1914. The Supreme Court of North Carolina, 
in April, 1914, declared the Winston-Salem ordinance uncon- 
stitutional. Judge Devine said: "The result of this policy 
might well be a large exodus of the most enterprising and thrifty 
element of the colored race, leaving the unthrifty and less 
desirable element in the State on taxpayers. If the Board of 
Aldermen is thereby authorized to make this restriction, a bare 
majority of the board could, if they deem it wise and proper, 
require Republicans to live on a certain street and Democrats on 
another, or that Protestants should reside only in a certain part 
of the town and Catholics in another, or that Germans or people 

" Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky., Feb. 13, 1915. 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 29 

of German descent should reside only where they were in the 
majority. "1^ 

Louisville passed the segregation ordinance in 1914, It was 
opposed especially by the Negroes. Mr. Wm. H. Steward, 
editor of The American Baptist, a Negro publication, said: ''My 
race feels that such an ordinance would humiliate us and while 
not offensive to the whites, it would be so to the Negroes. It 
would serve to keep us in alleys by confining us to certain locali- 
ties, and would be a death-blow to the progressive work which 
we are carrying on for the uplift of the race. 

"Such an ordinance would not guarantee us a decent locality 
for raising of children, as the localities now occupied by the 
Negroes are in the worst section of town. The white people and 
the Negroes ought to be able to reach an agreement and settle 
the difficulties without passing a law.''^^ On the other hand, 
Otis L. Harrison, editor of The Columbian Herald, a Negro paper, 
favored segregation. He argued that it was best for the Negro. 
In closing he said: 

"My people will be angry with me 

Because I hold up this noble fact; 
Some day for themselves they'll see 
The advantage of the segregation act. 

When they wake up from their dreams, 

They'll be glad we made the fight; 
Though we made it all, it seems, 

By toiHng both day and night. " 

Many of the influential whites and several of the papers published 
by whites were against the segregation act. One promi- 
nent white lady cried because the Negroes were humiliated in 
such a manner. 

I think the real estate dealers were responsible for the passage 
of the Louisville segregation ordinance. I found that they often 
played such games as the following, which was related to me by 
a colored lady in Louisville. She said that her father — who 
was a Baptist minister and had lived in Louisville for a number of 
years was often called on the telephone and told to come to a 
certain number on a certain street. When he would get there 

i« Surveij, vol. 33, p. 72. 

" The Louisville Herald, March 19, 1914. 



30 Race Relatioyiship in Border and Northern States 

he would find a vacant house. But the real estate dealer had 
before hand told the whites living near, that a Negro w^as trying 
to buy the house. The whites would see this Negro there and 
think he was trying to buy the house. In this way the real 
estate dealers made thousands of dollars. The colored lady 
went to a white lady's home in a white section of the city, one 
day, and found the white lady very much disturbed. The white 
lady asked the Negro w^hy her father wanted to buy the adjoining 
house. The Negro replied that her father did not want to buy it; 
he did not have the money to buy it with, and had never thought 
of it. The white lady told the Negro that a real estate dealer 
told her he was trying to buy it, and she saw him around there. 
Finally, however, the straw that broke the camel's back came. 
A Negro, who was advised by the leaders of his race not to do so, 
bought a home in a white section of the city and moved into it. 
The segregation act was then passed. 

The Louisville segregation act went through the Ordinance 
Court, then to the Circuit Court and was upheld in both courts. 
The Court of Appeals declared there was no discrimination. In 
1917, the Supreme Court declared it to be unconstitutional. In 
regard to this decision the Journal and Guide, a Negro newspaper 
pubhshed at Norfolk, Va., says: "We are hopeful and optimistic. 
The segregation decision of 1917 is a far step from the Dred Scott 
decision of 1857. And it must be remembered that the decision 
w'as handed down by a Supreme Court the majority of w^hose 
members are Democrats, and w^hose chief justice is a native 
Southerner. The decision is unique and remarkable also for the 
reason that never before in the history of the Supreme Court has 
that tribunal reached a unanimous decision upon any question 
upholding the rights of the Negro. " 

St. Louis passed the segregation ordinance in February, 1916. 
This was the first popular vote by the initiative under the new 
city charter of St. Louis, and the first popular vote in the United 
States in regard to race segregation. It resulted in adoption by 
a three to one vote. One half of the total registration cast their 
votes. One half of those who voted against the measure were 
Negroes. The only white wards which voted against it were two 
down town districts inhabited by citizens of foreign birth. This 
election marked the end of a six years ' fight by the small property 



Race Relationshi'p in Border and Northern States 31 

owners and real estate dealers to secure the segregation of the 
races. ''The ordinances were not vigorously opposed because it 
was apparent from the first that it would be almost impossible to 
make much headway against universal race prejudice and the 
interest of small property owners. * * * Much 
prejudice against the Negro had doubtless been aroused by the 
recent long run of the 'Birth of a Nation'. "'» 

The preambles of these ordinances are couched in modest 
phraseology that seems not to portray any great amount of race 
prejudice. But the Negro understands, full well, that it is a ser- 
ious blow to his progress. It means that the Negro must live 
where he is, regardless of progress, education, or refinement. 
This is especially true in regard to some of the ordinances. Say- 
ing a block is a mixed block is equivalent to saying it is a Negro 
block, for that is what it means in the end. When a white family 
moves away from a mixed block, generally speaking, a Negro 
must move in, if any one does. Whites usually do not wish to 
move in, and if the Negro is not allowed to, the house generally 
stands empty. Under the Louisville ordinances one family could 
change a block from white to colored. I know of one instance in 
which this happened, and a lady, who lived on the rent she re- 
ceived from a house, could not rent her house for several months. 

There seems to be a chance for a Negro to build on a vacant 
lot and thus escape undesirable surroundings. But we know full 
well that unless the vacant block is in the Negro district, there 
will be whites near and they will file objections, and the Negro 
will not be allowed to build. If the whites are not near enough 
to object, he is still in "Niggertown. " 

The segregation ordinances have their advantages and dis- 
advantages. It is an advantage to the small property owners 
and real estate dealers. It is a well known fact that if a Negro 
moves into a white block, property near by rapidly declines in 
value. The real estate dealer does not like to buy property in a 
block and then a Negro move in the block and lower the price of 
his property. The small property owners, real estate dealers, 
and petty politicians seem to be the chief promulgators of 
segregation ordinances. 

IS Surveij, March 11, 1916, p. 694. 



32 Race Relatiojiship in Border and Northern States 

The ordinances are disadvantageous to the Negroes, as they 
serve to keep them in the alleys and back streets. In Ashland, 
Virginia, a Negro was forbidden to occupy himself, or rent to 
Negroes, a house which he had purchased at auction. As it was 
formerly occupied by Negroes, white people could not move in 
and the property is going down in ruin. In another town a Negro 
was forbidden to build a house next to his own home on land he 
had owned for years. In Louisville, a Negro bought a home; 
before he could move in, that block was declared "white," so 
he has to rent it to white people. 

While segregation is disadvantageous to the Negro, I can see 
where it may come to be a blessing in disguise. It may be 
advantageous in forcing the better element to live with the bad. 
Of course this is trying at first, but it may serve to make the 
upper class take more interest in the lower. Thus it would bring 
about better poHce and fire protection, cleaner streets, better 
housing conditions, and a general uplift of the race. 

It may serve to help the Negro in another way. As the 
Negroes are segregated from the whites, they will, naturally, 
build up large Negro towns by the side of the white towns or 
cities, Avhich will be joined on to them as Buda is joined to Pest. 
In their own city they will have their own police, as they do in 
many towns in the South to-day. Later they will get other 
officers, elect their own representatives, and thus gain back much 
of their political power which they have lost through disfranchise- 
ment in some of the Southern States. 

The segregation ordinances started in Baltimore and have been 
making their chief headway in the Border States, and in those 
Border States which fought for the freedom of the Negroes in the 
Civil War. The more Southern cities have not shown much 
interest in the segregation movement. A bill was introduced 
into the General Assembly of North CaroUna, much like the 
Virginia segregation law, but it was lost. In several Southern 
cities it was discussed and dropped without any action; in others, 
it was delayed indefinitely; in some, like Birmingham, it was 
voted down; and in others, it was declared unconstitutional. 
Mr. A. P. Bruce says: "All the previous Statewide measures to 
separate the two races have had the unanimous approval of the 
Southern white people. On the other hand, this new municipal 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 33 

measure has not the unreserved endorsement of certain important 
sections of that people. At least, it can be said that the wealthier 
classes look upon the law with indifference. "^^ 

3. There are some other movements connected with segrega- 
tion which should be discussed in this chapter. 

(1) Dr. Clarence Poe, editor of The Progressive Farmer, 
North Carolina, fathered a movement to segregate the races in 
the country. Dr. Poe advocated the enactment of a statute by 
the General Assembly of North Carolina, providing that when- 
ever the greater part of the land acreage in any given district is 
owned by one race, a majority of the voters in such a district may 
say that in the future no land shall be sold to a person of a 
different race, provided such action is approved or allowed by a 
reviewing judge or board of county commissioners. This 
movement, though strongly advocated by Dr. Poe, has met no 
general approval. We may say it has met with violent opposition 
on the part of many progressive whites. I feel sure it will never 
amount to anything in North Carolina. 

(2) There is another movement that may be brought in here. 
This can scarcely be said to be a segregation movement, for the 
white people either never alloAV Negroes to live in certain dis- 
tricts and towns, or drive them out and do not permit them to 
return. In Waverly, Ohio, Negroes are not allowed to dwell. 
The white people do not believe they can stand the presence of 
a Negro in their town. A Negro is not permitted to stay over 
night under any consideration in Syracuse, Ohio. Some months 
ago "night-riders" appeared and drove all the Negroes out of 
New Madrid county, Missouri. There are certain counties in 
Indiana and Illinois that do not permit a Negro to dwell within 
their boundaries. Lawrenceburg, Ellwood, and Salem, Indiana, 
have not permitted Negroes to dwell there for years. On 
December 13, 1918, notices were posted in Boothwyn, Pa., giving 
the Negroes the following instructions: "All colored people are 
requested by the general public of Boothwyn to move by the 
21 Dec. 1918. Boothwyn, Pa." 

" Nation, vol. 93, p. 119. 



34 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

During the European War many Negroes went to Coatesville, 
Pa., to work. After the end of the war a wave of crime hit 
Coatesville and each night the cells at City Hall were filled with 
lodgers. Each morning the Negroes were lined up before the 
mayor, who informed them there was no work there for them, and 
then turned them over to the police with orders to escort them 
out of town and show them the road back South. In Huntington, 
Indiana, a petition was signed by 328 citizens, who demanded 
the removal of all Negroes from the city. They advanced as 
their reason that the Negroes were being used to replace white 
labor. The Negroes of Pittsburg are colonized largely in the 
East End. Recently they awoke to find their section of the 
town placarded with the following warning: ''The Klu Kluk 
Klan. The War Is Over. Niggers Stay in Your Places. If 
You Don't We'll Put You There. The Klu Kluk Klan." All 
over the North the Negroes were herded together and given 
instructions to "head South." Those that have reached the 
South fervently claim that it is no more North for them. 

I think it is clear that the chief battle of segregation is being 
fought in and near the Border States. The Northern Border 
States are in the heat of the fight. I beheve the South, in 
general, has no special interest in legal segregation beyond the 
laws already in force. I think that the South realizes if she 
continues to pass restrictive laws, she will lose the progressive 
element of the Negro race. This she does not wish to do. I 
believe the leaders of the Southern white people have come to 
reahze that a "rose cannot bloom under a millstone, but a cactus 
can. " So they are now working to develop the better qualities 
of the Negro rather than suppress them. 



CHAPTER III 

SEGREGATION IN INSTITUTIONS OF LEARNING 

Very early after the Civil War the States which formed the 
Southern Confederacy established the dual system of schools. 
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North 
Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma, 
Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland, and 
Delaware maintain this dual system of schools very rigidlJ^ 
Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware w^ere willing 
to be counted with the North in the war, but in the dual school 
system they were willing to be reckoned with, the South. Where 
did the idea of separate schools for the races originate? In the 
North. Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsyl- 
vania, Illinois, and Nevada once had separate schools, but most 
of them now have laws on their statute-books prohibiting them. 
Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Rhode Island, 
and New Mexico also prohibit them. Indiana and Arizona 
permit the school boards to establish separate schools if it is 
thought to be necessary. Kansas permits separate schools in cities 
of over 150,000 inhabitants. Connecticut, Maine, Montana, New 
Hampshire, North Dakota, Vermont, South Dakota, Utah, 
Wisconsin, and Washington have not seen fit to express their 
sentiments in regard to separate schools. 

We have seen that the Statewide dual system of schools is 
chiefly in those States designated as "South" in the Civil War. 
Here we should naturally expect to find this system, if anywhere, 
because it is chiefly the home of the Negro. But I think there 
is another explanation to it. I hardly think the system would 
have been so widespread, especially in the rural mountain dis- 
tricts, had it not been for the Reconstruction Period. The 
psychological effects of the period of Reconstruction upon the 
whites of the South can hardly be overestimated. It served to 
intensify racial differences and interests in a way very injurious 
to both groups, but especially to the Negroes. The Negro's 

35 



36 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

good conduct at home during the war, and proving himself to be 
a fighter, won for him the highest admiration on the part of the 
whites. The North had the idea that the Negroes would revolt 
and leave their masters, but this they did not do. A few of them 
ran away and went to the North, it is true, but most of them 
remained at the homes of their white masters, obediently working 
to support their masters' families and the Southern army. 
During all this period they remained faithful to every trust and 
not once were their black hands stained with blood. But when 
it came to the Reconstruction Period there was a change. This 
period, probably, hurt the South more than the four years war. 
The white man had been master of the Negro, but now the Negro 
was master of the white man. This caused the Southern whites 
to become embittered with a prejudice, both against the North 
and the Negro, that is far from being dead. To this cause, I 
think, can be attributed many of the laws of the South regarding 
the Negro. 

Just as soon as the schools were opened for the Negroes they 
were willing to take advantage as far as circumstances would 
permit. They had learned in slavery that education was not 
for a slave. Slavery being over, naturally, they were in a hurry 
to get an education. In their childish hopefulness they saw in 
education a sort of talismanic panacea. While they had no very 
definite idea regarding it, they were pretty sure that whatever 
else it might be, it did not constitute manual labor. They 
wanted education more than anything else, unless it was a 
public office. They desired it even more than the forty acres of 
land and a mule, which, it is said, was promised them and for 
which they waited so long in vain. Whatever else may be said 
against the Negroes, there is one thing, at least, to their credit, 
the Negroes after the war, and even to-day, throughout the 
South take advantage of practically every opportunity offered 
them for an education. In many places they far excel the whites 
along educational lines in comparison with the advantages 
offered. It is often said of the Negro in the South, that he will 
go to school regardless of what he has to eat and wear. 

We have seen that some of the Border States fought with the 
North but are as strict as any typical Southern State in separat- 
ing the races in school. Now, let us examine the conditions in 
the other Border and Northern States. 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 37 

1. When we examine the elementary and high schools of the 
Border and Northern States, we find that in most of them the 
law makes no distinction between the races as to their respective 
rights in the public school. There is, however, along the South- 
ern border of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Kansas 
a semi-legal segregation in the schools in force. At least, it 
amounts to a tacit understanding, in some of the towns, that the 
colored children must go to the colored schools, and that they will 
not be admitted to the schools attended by the white children. 
In fact, in any Northern town where they are proportionately 
numerous, there is just the same tendency and desire to have 
them separated from the whites as there is in the South. If this 
separation is not effected by white parents procuring the transfer 
of their children to schools where there but a few Negroes, very 
often parents send their children to private schools in order that 
they may not have to go to school with Negroes. 

In Kansas the school laws do not permit the separation of 
colored and white children except in cities of first class and then 
only in elementary schools. High schools of the State are open 
to both races with the exception of Kansas City, Kansas, which 
by special legislation has been permitted to segregate the races 
for the high school. When this law was passed, 1900, the Negro 
population in Kansas City was only 12.7 per cent, of the total 
population of the town, and about 3.5 per cent, of the whole 
population of the State. It seems that it was caused by agitation 
following the murdering of a white boy by a Negro. 

In many of the towns in Indiana the Negro children are 
admitted into the public schools with the white children. Other 
towns, however, maintain strict separate schools for the two 
races. Jeffersonville, Princetown, Evansville, Mt. Vernon, and 
Madison are especially noted for their separate schools. In 
Indianapolis the races are not so definitely separated, but even 
there, schools have been established in and near their settlements. 
Indiana has five colored high schools. 

There is no law for separation of the races in the schools of 
Illinois. There are, however, in the central and southern part 
of the State, a number of counties where separate schools prevail. 
In these counties the separation is carried out fully. In the 
cities, graded schools with high school courses are provided for, 



38 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

and proficient teachers are employed and the country schools 
are becoming standardized along with the other schools of the 
counties. In 1913 Illinois had six Negro high schools, two more 
than she had in 1910. Illinois has eighteen counties that main- 
tain these separate schools. This is according to the law of 
public sentiment. In Alton, in 1908, the Negro children were 
excluded from the public school most convenient to them. A 
case came up and after being tried seven times went to the 
Supreme Court where the Negroes gained it. But the next 
year the Negroes were excluded again. 

Ohio does not permit the separation of the races in schools, 
but Ohio has separate schools in some places and is listed as 
having one Negro high school. That is as many as Maryland 
or Delaware is listed as having, both of which maintain strict 
separation. 

New Jersey is another State which prohibits separate schools. 
But in East Orange, as early as 1906, we find a separate school 
for the Negroes established. Despite the law, several of the 
towns in New Jersey, as Haddonfield, Lawnside, Merchantville, 
Moorestown, etc., have estabhshed and maintain separate 
grammar grade schools for the Negroes. 

In regard to discrimination against the Negroes in schools of 
Philadelphia, Dr. DuBois writes: "The chief discrimination 
against Negro children is in the matter of educational facilities. 
Prejudice here works to compel colored children to attend certain 
schools where most Negro children go, and to keep them out of 
private and higher schools." 

There is a great deal of prejudice against mixed schools in 
eastern Pennsylvania. In Philadelphia and Chester the tendency 
is distinctly toward segregation. In both cities practically all 
the Negroes go to a few schools in or near their settlements, 
which schools are attended by very few if any whites. In 
Chester the races are very definitely separated in the elementary 
schools, but in the high school both races go together. Separate 
schools for the Negroes were established in Chester about fifteen 
years ago. One of the men who was very influential in getting 
the separate schools established told me how they proceeded. 
He said: "Oh, you have to be very diplomatic. Some of us 
Avent to some of the influential Negroes and told them, conditions 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 39 

being as they were, we thought it would be better to establish 
some separate schools for the colored people in the lower grades. 
That would give some of the colored people positions as teachers 
in the colored schools. They agreed to this and they were 
estabhshed." But about five years ago, when they tried to 
estabhsh a separate high school for the Negroes, there was such 
strong opposition on the part of the Negroes that the school wal 
not established. This, however, is only delayed, as there seems 
to be great opposition on the part of the school officials, teachers, 
and students to having a mixed school. One would not expect 
such opposition in a school where less than 50 of the 800 students 
are Negroes. In this school, as in many of the other mixed 
schools, the Negroes are often mistreated and insulted. The 
whites will not sit by them in class or assembly without showing 
strong opposition. Some students will tell you frankly that they 
will not sit by a Negro, that they will go home before they will 
sit by them. And there is always a general row as to who will 
have to sit by the Negroes during commencement exercises. 

On one of my investigation trips in Chester, I met a business 
man of the city who had moved there some years before from 
New York State. He was very bitter against the Negroes. He 
had refused to buy a group picture for his boy of his class in the 
elementary school because there was one Negro in his class. He 
told me he would not have the picture of any Negro in his home. 
He requested the teacher of his boy to have the Negro put out of 
school. This case is no exception as I found later. Any iriVesti- 
gator can find in any Northern city with a considerable Negro 
population plenty of cases of this kind in a few days, and find 
them among Northern born and bred men. 

I have said that Pennsylvania prohibits separate schools, but 
the law seems to be ineffective, for Professor N. C. Schaeffer, 
late Superintendent of Public Instruction of Pennsylvania wrote 
me: "In CarUsle and in several other places we have separate 
schools for the colored people. Some of these towns where 
separate schools have been established areCoatesville,Frankford, 
Germantown, Lansdown, Sharon Hill, West Chester, etc. In 
Swarthmore, where the Negro population is only about 200, race 
prejudice is so strong that they now have in the school a Negro 
teacher who has all the colored pupils in one class room. Lans- 



40 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

down has a Negro population of about 300, but with such a few 
Negroes, race prejudice is so strong that there is no record of a 
colored child graduating in the public school in the last 25 years. 
Greater New York Consolidation empowered the school 
boards (1898) to establish schools for colored people. In 1898 
and 1899 in the borough of Queens, when the school board for 
that borough was established, two colored schools were in exist- 
ence, one in Flushing and one in Jamaica. In Jamaica there had 
been trouble for some time because of the refusal of a colored man 
to send his children to the colored school. This controversy 
finally led, in 1900, to the passage of a law upon the initiative of 
Governor Roosevelt amending the consolidated school law of the 
State and abolishing colored schools except in the rural districts. 
The two schools referred to, it is believed, were the last schools, 
maintained in the State with the exception of one at Hampstead, 
Long Island. The present legal regulation provides that separ- 
ate schools may be established if the local authorities vote to do 
so. We may feel sure separate schools are being estabhshed. 
Mr. Baker says: "In Northern cities hke Indianapolis and New 
York, * * * separate schools have appeared, 
naturally and quietly, in districts where the Negro population 
is dense. "21 

From Sheffield, Massachusetts, near Boston, comes the report 
that white persons complained because of mixed schools. The 
school board then organized a separate school for the Negroes 
with a Negro woman as the teacher. To this, the Negroes 
objected and refused to send their children to the Negro school. 
A Negro lawyer took the case to the courts. But the courts 
sustained the board of education in their action. It seems 
strange that the sons of famous abolitionists would object to 
their children going to school with Negroes. 

From Chester, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, and many 
other Northern cities comes the complaint that Negroes either 
refuse to enter the high schools or drop out before completing 
the course. In the South it is different; here about all they ask 
is to be given a chance and they will go to school. I think there 
are two reasons why the large number of Negroes do not attend 
the high schools in the North: They see no reason why they 

2" Following the Color Line, p. 30G. 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 41 

should continue longer in school. Education fails to secure for 
them a better position. If they secure a position in a store or 
hotel, it is a boy's job and in this job they must continue through- 
out life. Neither education nor energy will permit them to 
advance into a man's job. Some of the hardest questions asked 
me while I was teaching in a mixed high school in the North, 
were asked by Negro students in regard to courses of study, 
schools, and professions. One very black, yet quite intelligent 
Negro of the junior class told me he wished to be a chemist, and 
asked my advice. I told him that he was large and old enough to 
realize what the conditions are, and how race prejudice would 
hinder him in his work. It would doubtless be impossible for 
him to secure a position in the North. But if he would prepare 
himself, I thought, he could go South and secure a good position 
among his own people. 

Then again, at the age the colored students reach high school 
they are old enough to really begin to understand race prejudice. 
Numerically, they are the smaller group, so they are crowded 
out of the games and shunned in many ways. Many times have 
I seen a few Negroes in a high school standing off by themselves, 
talking or trying to play, while the whites were all playing to- 
gether. The whites do not like to sit by the Negroes; they do 
not like to walk with them or play with them; they will not eat 
with them; and when it comes to a class social the Negroes 
understand that they are not wanted, so they stay away. Rather 
than endure these things the Negroes refuse to attend high 
schools in the North. 

2. In most States, business and trade schools are a law unto 
themselves. They are mostly private schools and few States 
make any provisions for private schools. They give ample 
opportunity for discrimination against the Negro. This dis- 
crimination began so very early that it seems to be generally 
understood that Negroes are not permitted to enter. I think 
it is for this reason that we find so few cases on record for the 
last few years. The Negroes tested the courts and found that 
the courts claimed no authority over private schools. So they 
decided that they have no more money to waste in this way. Of 
course there is a reason for their not trying to enter now. They 
now understand their economic position better than a few years 



42 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

ago. So they do not care to spend their time and money com- 
pleting a course when they know they will not be able to secure 
a position after they have graduated. 

We cannot decry the owners of these schools for their dis- 
criminations. They know if they permit Negroes to enter their 
schools they will lose many white students. Then, if they are 
unable to secure positions for their graduates their pride is 
wounded and their school injured. There are many cases on 
record in the Juvenile Protective Association teUing the results 
of educated Negroes who failed to find employment as stenogra- 
pher, book-keeper, or clerk. One young man, a graduate of a 
technical high school, was sent with other graduates of his class 
to a large electric company where in presence of his classmates 
he was told: "Niggers are not wanted here." Because it is 
impossible for a Negro to get a position as book-keeper, stenogra- 
pher, or clerk, Negro boys and girls in the high schools in the 
North refuse to elect the commercial and technical courses; and 
business and mechanical schools almost all over the North deny 
admission to Negroes. 

3. Discriminations against Negroes in colleges and univer- 
sities, in the North, seem to have increased very rapidly for the 
last few years. We hear of them in locations where one would 
hardly dream of discriminations as there are no visible causes. 

The most famous case on record in any of the Border States is 
the Berea College case. Why the legislature of Kentucky, 
March, 1904, passed the laAV excluding Negro students from 
Berea College is quite a question. Dr. Frost writes me: "The 
agitation for a law excluding colored students from Berea College 
arose at the time a wave of feeling swept over the South following 
the famous luncheon at which Booker Washington sat with 
President Roosevelt. There were citizens of Berea also who 
fomented agitation because they beheved that the exclusion of 
colored students would advance the price of real estate in the 
village. When the matter was once brought before the legis- 
lature it was difficult for anybody to oppose it without subjecting 
himself to opprobrium from the violent Negro haters in the 
legislature." 

We are aware that after the famous luncheon the South rose 
up in anger. Newspapers printed an account of the act in large 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 43 

headlines and petty politicians poured out their wrath on the 
President in such a manner as to make one believe that by a 
miraculous act some antediluvians had escaped the Flood. 
Doubtless the President did not imagine he was doing anything 
so bizarre or strange as to make such a pother. I do not mean 
to defend President Roosevelt in this act. Personally, I have no 
objections to whites eating with Negroes if they want to do so. 
I have eaten many a meal with Negroes both in the corn-fields 
of North Carolina and in Huston Club in the University of 
Pennsylvania. Eating with Dr. Washington did not injure 
President Roosevelt, either morally or socially, I am sure. But 
he should have had enough foresight to have seen that this act 
would cause the Negroes in the South to receive many injuries 
from the whites, and the whites to receive many insults from the 
Negroes. Indeed, the famous luncheon gave the politicians a 
new subject to discuss in order to stir up race hatred and thereby 
gain office. 

There is another side to the Berea College case that eluded the 
casual inquirer, nevertheless, one that is held by many whites 
and Negroes in Kentucky. Many of the whites and colored 
people believe that President Frost was the first one to start the 
agitation to have the white and colored students separated in 
Berea College. They say that Dr. Frost saw that the school 
was going down financially, and that he could never build up the 
kind of a school he wished as long as the two races were together. 
I asked Dr. Frost if he were falsely accused. He repfied: "I did 
not desire or promote actively or secretly that movement." 

There were, perhaps, several things working together that 
caused the law to be passed, as, the famous luncheon, with the 
spread of the anti-Negro legislation in other States, in the hands 
of the politicians. Then there was a desire for advanced prices 
among some of the real estate dealers in Berea. There was also 
some pubhshed misrepresentations of the conditions among the 
students of Berea. These, however, the legislature declined to 
send a committee to investigate. And finally, perhaps, some of 
the authorities of Berea College wished to have the Negroes 
excluded, thinking they could build up a better school without 
the colored students. 



44 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

Berea College, established on the old soil of slavery, freely 
admitted white and colored students for nearly forty years and 
without contamination or reproach, taught them in the same 
classes. It took a State law to separate the white and colored 
students in Berea College, but as we advance North we find 
many schools where it does not require a State law. Public 
sentiment forces the Negro out and when a case comes up in 
court the Negro loses the case. It has become very easy for 
j udges in the North ,to find some technical point of law on which 
to base their decisions against the Negro. 

When we examine a city like Cincinnati, we find that no Negro 
can attend the Eclectic Medical School, the Ohio Medical College 
or any other medical institution in the city. The Ohio Medical 
College is a part of the University of Cincinnati and supported 
by public taxation, but, nevertheless, Negroes are excluded. 
There is no law to this effect but it is according to public will. 

When the Negroes began to migrate to Chicago, there was an 
increase of colored students in the schools. With this increase 
prejudice increased until several of the medical schools made an 
agreement and closed their schools to the colored graduate stud- 
ents. Negro settlers have increased and prejudice has increased 
until it is next to impossible for a Negro to get first class medical 
training in Chicago. 

Even as far North as Grand Rapids, Michigan, and as early 
as 1908, we find that two Negroes were refused admission to the 
Grand Rapids Medical College, a private institution. A writ of 
mandamus compelling the school to admit them was issued. 
Thirty-four members of the junior class struck. The Supreme 
Court ruled that a private institution of learning, though incorpo- 
rated, had a right to say whom it will admit. The city of Grand 
Rapids at that time had only 66.5 Negroes among her 112,571 
inhabitants. 

Des Moines, Iowa, had 86,368 inhabitants, 2,930 of whom are 
Negroes. In 1908 we find that the white students forced the 
color line to be drawn in Highland Park College. The Negroes 
claimed that it was the greatest set back they had had in Iowa. 

Out of the forty-four colleges in Pennsylvania, one of which is 
for Negroes, sixteen report never to have had a Negro student. 
Several others report to have had one, or two, or three, and those 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 45 

several years ago. The University of Pennsylvania, probably, 
has had more Negro students than any of the other higher 
institutions, but here they receive few if any honors. I have 
never seen one in any athletic game or contest. Even a Du Bois 
could not become a professor in that institution. Some of the 
religious schools as the Moravian Seminary and St. Vincent's 
College do not permit Negroes to enter. Crozcr Theological 
Seminary has no Negro students. Some people seem to think 
it is due to the large number of Southern students there, but I 
believe the Northern students are just as nmch opposed to the 
idea as the Southern students. I really believe they were more 
bitter and showed less sympathy in their remarks than the 
Southern students. Many of the students from the South ex- 
pressed their preference of going to school with Negroes rather 
than Italians, Poles, Russians, and some other foreigners. 

Some of my Negro classmates in the University of Pennsylvania 
told me that their best friends in the University were Southern 
boys. The Northern boys were not so open with their prejudice, 
but used it where it counted. A Negro girl related before the 
class her experience with race prejudice. I wish to repeat it 
here as accurately as I can recall it: 

She is the daughter of a minister in Philadelphia. Her home 
was in a white ward. In school she was the only Negro in her 
class, so she did not meet with much race prejudice in passing 
through the elementary and high school. When it came time 
for her to make arrangements to go to college, she found that 
most of her classmates were going to Bryn Mawr. They ex- 
pressed their desire for her to enter with them, but when she 
went to stand the entrance examinations, she was informed that 
Negroes were not permitted to enter. She, then, looked for a 
college where she could go, finally selecting Cornell. She 
graduated from Cornell with the Phi Beta Kappa honor. She 
returned to Philadelphia to teach school, but the school board 
refused to employ her. She then went to work and finally se- 
cured a school, only to be turned out to make room for a white 
girl. 

President Mackenzie of Hartford Theological Seminary tells 
me, "That at rare intervals we have received a Negro into the 
Hartford Theological Seminary. We have none at present. So 



46 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

far as I know, there were no serious complaints on the part of the 
white students. In each case, however, the men were 'picked 
men'." 

About a year ago a Negro made appHcation to enter a theo- 
logical seminary in the North. The school authorities not 
knowing what to do with the applicant, decided to leave it to the 
two Southern members of the faculty. These two men voted to 
lot the Negro enter. Then the school authorities had to find 
another excuse for excluding the Negro. A member of the 
faculty of a Northern theological seminary said to me not long 
ago, ' 'My father was a Southerner and a slave-owner, but I could 
not refuse to teach Negro students. I teach Italians, Russians, 
Japanese, and other races, why should I refuse to teach Negro 
students." 

A short while ago the white students in a New Hampshire 
college treated a Negro student very badly. This was to give 
notice to other colored youths that they were no longer expected 
to enter that institution. And on April 30, 1919, two Negro 
students from Boston were tarred and feathered by the white 
students at the University of Maine, Orono, led through the 
streets of the town with halters about their necks, and chased 
from town. 

The Bostonians have ever proclaimed their ideas of freedom 
and culture, which they wished to give to all races, and believed 
it the duty of every one to accept. But Boston is undergoing a 

change, in one thing at least equal advantages for all races. 

Even the old historic Harvard University is changing. Harvard 
has been noted for its liberal policies toward the Negro, and has 
always given him exceptional advantages, but for the last few 
years many have noticed a changing attitude within Harvard. 
Notwithstanding the fact that the Negro students at Harvard 
have been law-abiding and never disgraced the institution, the 
lines have been drawn in the medical school and Negroes no 
longer receive the liberal treatment they formerl ' received in 
other branches of the University. Although a few years ago a 
Negro doctor was house physician at the Boston Lying-in- 
Hospital, Negroes students can no longer enter that institution. 
The medical school requires six obstetrical cases, but the colored 
students are not admitted to the Lying-in-Hospital, so they can 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 47 

not get the degree. A few years ago President Eliot awakened 
much sharp comment among the Negroes of Boston, when, in an 
address, he indicated his sympathy with the general policy of 
separate education in the South by remarking that if the Negro 
students formed a large proportion of the students, a separation 
of the races might follow at Harvard. 

4. As above noted, Harvard excludes Negroes from the 
medical school by excluding them from the hospital. If Harvard 
wanted the Negro students she could very easily arrange for 
them to get the required number of obstetrical cases, but they 
arc not wanted and this method is used to exclude them. The 
medical schools in several of the cities of the North are using this 
same method to exclude the Negro students. 

In Cincinnati, which is typical of other border cities, Negroes 
are not allowed to operate in Sexton Hospital, the large City 
Hospital, a public institution, or in any of the better hospitals 
of the city. Sometimes Negroes are received into segregated 
wards in the City Hospital, but they cannot have a physician 
of their own race attend them. In the Children 's Home, a large 
public institution, Negro children can stay but twenty-four hours. 
In the reformatories, city and county prisons, and city work- 
house, they separate the white and colored as much as they 
possibly can. 

Preventing Negroes from operating in the hospitals is a 
serious drawback to the race. It often shuts them out of schools 
where they would get the best hospital training and medical 
instruction. This they should have ,for they go to practice, 
generally, among their own race, a race whose death rate far 
exceeds the death rate of the whites, and a race which has some 
diseases almost peculiar to it. For these reasons they should 
have the best medical and hospital training that science affords. 
It would probably be advantageous for the Negroes to have a 
large graduate medical school where they could study diseases 
which are more common among their race. Disease germs have 
no race prejudice, and the diseases which attack the Negro to- 
day will attack the white race to-morrow. It seems that it is 
time for the white people to realize that the great inroads of 
such diseases as tuberculosis and fevers can never be stopped 
until the Negroes are trained in modern methods of scientific 



48 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

sanitation. In order to lower our death rate we must train the 
Negro and help him to lower his death rate. The two races in 
America are tied together and the progress of each depends upon 
the other and must be made together. 

West Virginia requires that the white and Negro inmates of 
her reform school for boys shall be kept separate, and the indus- 
trial home for girls as far as possible. New York has on many 
occasions made appropriations for asylums for Negro children. 
Regardless of the law, she leaves the impression that Negroes are 
not admitted to the asylum for the white children. All through 
the North, wherever there is a considerable number of Negroes, 
separate institutions have sprung up for the Negro children. 
And while there are a number of institutions that will admit 
Negro children, they usually find some excuse for sending them 
to the institutions maintained by their own race. This spirit of 
separation has grown rapidly within the last fifteen years. 

Some of the States go as far as to train their soldiers separately. 
In 1889, West Virginia provided that, if any colored troops should 
be organized, they should be enlisted and kept separate and apart 
from the other troops, and should be formed into separate 
companies and regiments. In 1895, New Jersey made provisions 
for four companies of colored infantry. This evidently means 
that they were to be kept separated from the whites. When our 
troops were on the Mexican border, I am informed that there was 
not a Negro among those from the New England States nor from 
New York State. In training our soldiers for the European war, 
the Negroes were kept apart from the white soldiers. 

While I am not dealing with institutions of relief and punish- 
ment, as they can hardly be considered as institutions of learning, 
since little or no instructions along educational lines is given in 
them, I wish to say in passing, that in my opinion the Negro 
race, both North and South, is sadly neglected along this line. 
In many places the Negroes are shut out of the white institutions 
of relief without any institutions of their own. In places where 
institutions have been established for Negroes, they are often 
poorly equipped and sadly neglected. The Negroes have estab- 
lished homes for their aged in New Haven, Boston, Springfield, 
Providence, New Bedford, New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, 
Jersey City, Wilmington, Baltimore, Washington, Leavensworth 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 49 

and Evansville, Indiana. The sad neglect of the Negroes on the 
part of the whites forced the Negroes to estabHsh these homes. 

For some years after the Civil War the subject of Negro 
education divided the whites, roughly, into three classes: One 
class, chiefly in the South, thought it useless to try to educate the 
Negroes. They believed the minds of the Negroes incapable of 
being developed. Another class, in both North and South, 
believed the Negro capable of grasping an elementary education 
only. The other class, chiefly in the North, believed the Negro 
capable and worthy of receiving a higher education. The last 
class has now absorbed many of the other two classes. Yet there 
are a few who cry out in glowing headlines against Negro educa- 
tion, but they seem to have more prejudice than sound judgment 
and their proofs are based on fallacies in their own minds. Out- 
side of yellow journalism, we seldom see such lavishness of 
language wasted on such a hoary dogma. To be sure there are 
hundreds of Negroes incapable of grasping an education, and 
there are also hundreds of whites in the same predicament. But 
a philosopher and a fool may not only be members of the same 
race, but of the same family. 

The Negroes themselves are divided on the subject of the 
Negro's abihty to develop. Mr. Wm. H. Thomas says: "What- 
ever the freedman has achieved in the way of intelligence and 
character is due to alien qualities incorporated into his b^ng 
through race amalgamation, "^i But Dr. Washington says : " The 
Negro is behind the vvhite man because he has not had the same 
chance, and not from any inherent difference in his nature and 
desires. "22 And again Thomas says: "No one denies that the 
Negro is environed by a network of prejudice, many of which are 
the results of his acts. But were all racial antipathy instantane- 
ously eradicated, he would still be inferior to the white man in 
many respects, not only on account of racial differences in color 
and development, but also because of whatever creates inequality 
whether it be houses, land, clothes, food, or personal dexterity 
and culture." 

I think we all agree that the Negro as a race is not ccjual to the 

21 The American Negro, p. 409. 

22 The Future of the American Negro, p. 26. 



50 Race Relationship in Border and Norlhern Stales 

white race. The Negroes reahze that numerically they are the 
weaker of the two races except in the "Black Belt," and intel- 
lectually the less developed. iut who says they will always 
remain so? I have very little respect for the intelligence of the 
man who doubts the capacity of the Negro for improvement or 
usefulness. The trouble with some people is they expect the 
Negro to develop in fifty years to the state of civilization that 
it has taken the white man hundreds of years to reach. The 
chief trouble we have regarding the Negro is we have no standard 
for comparison. Probably, if we knew the rate of progress of 
other primitive people we should find the progress of the Negro 
remarkable. 

The psychologists tell us that the brain of the white man is 
heavier than the brain of the Negro man, but the brain of the 
Negro man is heavier than the brain of the white woman. The 
brain of the tribal African or Australian weighs less than the 
brain of the American Negro. Who knows how rapidly brain 
weight develops anyway? Quite often the foreigner coming to 
this country will, in three generations, have a change in head 
formation and an increase in brain weight. But, then, no one 
knows how much of the brain we use in thinking. 

When it comes to comparing the white and colored children in 
schools, regardless of how the tests have been made the white 
pupils made the best showing. It seems that the Negro children 
advance more rapidly in separate schools than in mixed. This 
seems like an argument for separate schools. It is possible, 
however, that the system of grading was not as strict as in the 
mixed schools. When I first began to teach in a mixed school, 
I found that many of the teachers had one standard for the white 
pupils and a lower standard for the colored pupils. Some of 
them said the Negroes would never be able to pass if they held 
them to the same standard as the white pupils, but I found that 
the Negroes averaged very well with the white pupils. The 
superintendent of the city schools of a certain city in the North, 
told me he did not like mixed schools, that he had been dealing 
with mixed schools for twenty-five years and he had found only 
one colored student that was worth "bothering with." It may 
be that the races will make better advancement in separate schools 
but I hardly think so. I believe that education and culture are 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 51 

centripetal as well as centrifugal processes. I think the chief 
cause of retardation of Negro pupils is their home, economic, 
and social life. The Negro in the North lacks incentive. Very- 
little is offered the educated Negro in the North. Most of the 
Negroes are poor and it is about all many of them can do to 
survive the economic conflict in the North. What time they 
have off from work they want to get together and have music and 
dancing and a general "big time." Environment counts for 
much in the life of the Negro student, but heredity also has a part 
to play and it plays it well. Considering all the disadvantages 
the Negro has had to overcome, it is marvelous how rapidly he 
has developed, and how well he holds his own against the pro- 
gressive white race. 

In a discussion with a Northern educator about the change in 
race relationship he said: "I know you are wrong on one part, 
however, viz. the interest of the South in the development of the 
Negro. I see no evidence in increased expenditure for education 
— the one thing necessary of any special interest." As a reply 
I wish to give the figures of two representative States: In com- 
paring the Negro school conditions in 1910-11 with 1915-16, in 
ten typical counties in Virginia, it was found that the number of 
teachers had increased from 313 to 352. The proportion of teachers 
to school population was reduced from one teacher for 88 children 
to one teacher for 80 children; the average length of term was in- 
creased from 106 days to 121 days; the amount spent for teachers' 
salaries was per capita of school population (7 to 20 years) 
increased from $1.40 to S2.01. In North Carolina the value of 
colored pubhc school property in 1904 was $237,768; in 1914 it 
was $1,021,736. The total amount spent for Negro public school 
teachers' salaries in 1904 was $234,625; in 1914 it was $484,114. 
The average term for Negro schools in 1904 was 16 weeks, in 1914 
it was 23 weeks. There are now employed 36 Negro rural 
supervisors in the State, and 18 county teachers ' training schools, 
have recently been established. During the last two years $8,000 
was spent for building rural Negro school houses. In order to 
use this $8,000 about $30,000 had to be raised out of the local and 
county funds. 

It is estimated that the South has spent more than $200,000,- 
000 for Negro public schools in the last thirty years, and is now 



52 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

spending over $4,000,000 annually for the same purpose, most of 
this, of course, from white taxpayers. In Delaware the public 
school money is proportioned according to the racial percentage 
of taxes. As a result of this pohcy the Negroes are not able to 
maintain rural schools and the children that live in the country 
are thus deprived of an education. But in the South the money 
is distributed according to general population and needs. The 
South has and is expending large sums of money for the education 
of her Negroes. I believe the South is vitally interested in Negro 
education and is becoming more so every day. Dr. Weatherford 
writes me: "I think there is no doubt but that the Southern 
Border States are making a larger effort to help the Negro than 
ever before. Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee all have 
supervisors of rural schools for Negroes, all of them being 
exceedingly choice Southern white men who are prominent in 
educational work. In addition, there are many good school 
buildings being erected for the colored schools and a great deal 
of general work is being done. This is just one indication of the 
increasing interest of these States, " 

Booker T. Washington, probably, did more to change the 
attitude of the South toward the Negro and Negro education than 
any one man. He advocated industrial education for the Negroes 
and that is the kind the South believes in, for here is where the 
Negro has made the greatest success. Hampton and Tuskegee 
Institutes and some other schools have been great forces in chang- 
ing sentiment toward Negro education. At first, the white 
South looked upon Negro schools with suspicion, but gradually 
they have come to accept them as agents for good. The North- 
ern whites made grave mistakes in their early efforts at educating 
the Negro. These mistakes caused the South to become very 
suspicious of the educated Negro. Many of them thought 
education made a criminal out of the Negro, but they later found 
this to be untrue. Dr. Washington often said in his speeches: 
"Not a single graduate of the Hampton Institute nor of the 
Tuskegee Institute can be found to-day in any jail or State 
Penitentiary. " The students at Hampton and Tuskegee arc 
trained to work and make an honest living. An incident is told 
of two Tuskegee students going to a town in Georgia and taking 
the contract for a job of plastering. They hired a white man to 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 53 

carry mortar for them at a dollar per day and when the job was 
finished they had averaged four dollars per day each. It was 
admitted to be the best job of plastering in the town and the 
white people tried to get them to stay there, but they went back 
to school to complete their course. One little incident as this 
makes many friends for a Negro school, and it seems that about 
every graduate of these schools goes out advocating better race 
relationship. They do nothing to offend the whites and strive 
to help their own race. Gradually they are winning the friend- 
ship of the white South by their manly, industrious, progressive, 
Christian qualities. What would the South be in twenty-five 
years if she had 200 or even 100 schools like Hampton and Tuske- 
gee, sending forth well trained industrious boys and girls? These 
graduates are not committers of crime, but the enemies of crime. 
They are up-builders and not down-tearers. How much better 
it is to spend our money in such institutions rather than in courts, 
penitentiaries, jails, punishing Negro criminals! How much 
better it is to spend $100 toward educating an ambitious young 
Negro, than have him become a criminal, a destroyer of property, 
a murderer of human beings, and a demoralizer of society! 

In the North many of the best educated and most cultured 
Negroes do not seek to elevate the masses of their race. The 
existing conditions disgust some of them, as the author of The 
Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, so that they curse every 
drop of Negro blood that flows through their veins, and eke out 
an existence of little worth to the masses of their race. In the 
South the best of the Negroes remain with their race faithfully 
trying to elevate it. This class of Negroes coming in contact 
with the better class of whites is bringing about a great change. 
Leaders of both races meet to-day and discuss the problems of the 
two races, often from the same platform. While it was an un- 
heard of thing a few years ago for Negroes and whites to meet in 
the same building and speak from the same platform, it is a very 
common thing to-day and is done when any subject is to be 
discussed that is of mutual interest to both races, and done in 
such a way that the Negro feels no humiliation. 

The Civil War and Reconstruction Period left the South 
financially and economically bankrupt and socially disorganized. 
From this chaotic condition she has had to recuperate. She has 



54 Race Relatio7iship in Border and Northern States 

had many differential and integral problems to solve, and she has 
many more to solve. She is working patiently at their solution. 
Just now she is trying to solve the great puzzle of what kind of an 
education is best for the Negro child. She realizes that she 
must solve her problems herself; she knows not where to turn for 
help. The South has received a great deal of advice and infor- 
mation, regarding the Negro, from the North, especially the New 
England States, all of which was worthless. If the white people 
of the North understand the Negro so well, why is it they become 
so bitter against him after a few weeks in the South? If 1,000,- 
000 Negroes cause the North to flash forth such vivid pictures 
of race prejudice, what would they do in their idiosyncrasies with 
11,000,000 more? The Northern white man living in the South 
is usually a bitter enemy of the Negro. 

I feel that the South is doing about all she can toward the 
education of the Negro. She does not possess the wealth which 
the North possesses. She is burdened with taxes. Three months 
of school burdens Mississippi more than ten months burdens 
Massachusetts. Of our payment of pensions — running up to 
$130,000,000 a year — the South bears her proportion, though it 
is paid to men for fighting against her, and she makes no remon- 
strance. Is it not simple justice, is it not a matter of national 
conscience and honor that the whole nation should help her in 
educating the future citizens of the Republic? I think our school 
system would be more satisfactory if managed by the National 
Government rather than individual States. 

It is true that the Negro child does not learn and develop as 
rapidly as the white child, but he is developing and learning and 
making progress all the time. It is just as essential for the Negro 
to have equal advantages for development as for any other pros- 
pective citizen. If we hold a man in a ditch we must stay there 
with him. When we hinder the development of the Negro, we 
diminish ourselves, hinder the development of our nation, and 
violate the ethics of Jesus. We should by all means give the 
Negro child a chance to develop fully, for he is to be a citizen 
to-morrow, and on his training depends much whether he will be 
a progressive citizen or a criminal. 



CHAPTER IV 



RACE DISTINCTIONS IN PLACES OF PUBLIC 
ACCOMMODATION 

It was difficult to find an all-comprehensive heading for this 
chapter. However, I think the heading will give some idea of 
what the chapter contains, and I also feel that it is broad enough 
to cover the subjects which I wish to discuss under it. In 
this chapter I wish to examine race prejudice as it is portrayed 
in our dealing with the Negro in railroad and street cars; hotels 
and restaurants; theatres and motion picture shows; barbershops 
and bootblack stands; skating-rinks and pool-rooms; parks, etc. 

1. The first "Jim Crow" cars were run in Massachusetts in 
184L In 1866 Massachusetts made it unlawful to discriminate 
against any one on account of color in public conveyances. The 
term "Jim Crow" was used to designate cars set apart wholly 
for the use of Negroes. Massachusetts had her " Jim Crow " cars 
for a long time to herself. It was not until 1865, when Florida 
and Mississippi passed their laws, that "Jim Crow" cars made 
their appearance in the South. These two States were followed 
by Texas the next year. 

About this time a reaction seems to have set in against "Jim 
Crow" cars. Whether this was due to Reconstruction influences 
or other forces I am unable to say, but in 1870 Georgia passed a 
law prohibiting any discrimination against Negroes on cars. The 
next year Texas repealed her "Jim Crow" law and made it 
unlawful to make such discriminations. Louisiana, in 1873, 
passed a law against discrimination on cars. She was followed 
by Arkansas the next year. Before 1875, I think we are safe in 
saying, Negroes were often ejected from cars and refused passage 
in many of the Northern and Western States as well as the South- 
ern States. This is true in States like New York, Massachusetts, 
Pennsylvania, Delaware, Ilhnois and Iowa; and it often happened 
in cities as in San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, 
and Chicago. 

55 



56 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

With the exception of transient "Jim Crow" laws of Florida, 
Mississippi and Texas (1865-67), for many years after the Civil 
War whites and Negroes were crowded together in the same 
coaches. It was found from experience, according to the state- 
ments of some, that this commingling of the two races was the 
cause of frequent breach of the peace and not seldom, murder. 
The fault seems to have been sometimes with one race and some- 
times with the other. Whether this commingling of the two 
races in the cars was a cause of crime is an open question. It 
was probably the cause of some crime for when the lower classes 
of these two groups come in close proximity there is usually a 
clash. However, it gave room for discussions and theories, and 
was probably one of the chief causes of our present "Jim Crow" 
laws. 

Tennessee was the first State to adopt a comprehensive law 
separating Negro and white passengers on railroad cars. This 
law was passed in 1881. For six years the other States waited to 
see how the law would work in Tennessee. Florida followed 
Tennessee in 1887; Mississippi, 1888; Texas, 1889; Louisiana, 
1890; Alabama, Kentucky, Arkansas and Georgia, 1891. Then 
there was another period of hesitancy, and it was eight years 
later when South Carohna passed her law. North Carolina 
passed the law in 1899; Virginia, 1900; Maryland, 1904; and 
Oklahoma, 1907. Missouri and West Virginia are yet without 
any "Jim Crow" laws, athough there has been some agitation for 
the law in both, especially in West Virginia. 

Most of these States differ some in the letter of their "Jim 
Crow" laws. Oklahoma and Texas forbid the railroads carrying 
sleeping and chair cars jointly for the races. Texas, however, 
insists on equal accommodations for the two races. The two 
races have to be separated in Pullman cars in Georgia, but the 
railroads do not have to carry Pullman cars for Negroes. The 
"Jim Crow" law does not apply to Pullman cars on through 
express trains in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, nor to 
through vestibule trains in South Carolina. Maryland, Okla- 
homa, Texas and Virginia do not require freight trains carrying 
passengers to have separate coaches for the races. South 
Carolina exempts the narrow-gauge roads. In North Carolina, 
the railroad commissioners have power to exempt branch lines 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 57 

and narrow-gauge roads from "Jim Crow" requirements. All 
the States make provisions for colored nurses and servants 
accompanying white people. 

In most of the Southern States the separation of the races is 
also required on boats carrying passengers within the waters of 
the State. Each State law may differ, but in most of them a 
provision is made for the separation. 

Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and South Carolina require 
separate waiting rooms for the Negroes and the whites. The 
waiting rooms are usually in the same building, side by side, but 
separated in small stations by a wall, in many of the larger ones 
by a "fence." The railroads have usually found it better to 
build separate waiting rooms in the Southern States where the 
laws do not require this. There are, however, many small 
waiting rooms in several States in the South, where there is no 
separation of the races; and in some of the larger towns, as 
Covington, Ky., there are no separate waiting rooms. In most 
of the stations, which have separate waiting rooms, the room for 
Negroes is equal to the one for the whites. The Union Station, 
10th and Broadway, Louisville, Ky., has the poorest accommo- 
dations for the Negroes in comparison with the accommodations 
for the whites that I have found in my travels. Here the Negroes 
go through the main waiting room where the whites remain, but 
the Negroes are put off into a small room in one corner. They 
are permitted to go out into the main waiting room for tickets 
and water but cannot remain out there. 

The "Jim Crow" cars come under no one general description. 
I have occasionally seen a car for colored people as clean as any 
day coach for whites. But many of them are far below the 
average car for white people. Often the Negroes are given a 
whole car or more than one car to themselves on the train — 
according to the demands. But on some trains where there are 
not many Negroes they are given the section of the baggage car 
which is used in the North on branch lines as a smoker. The 
"Jim Crow" cars are hitched close to the engine. Naturally, 
this would cause them to catch more smoke and soot. It seems 
that the railroad officials put forth very httle effort to keep the 
Negro coaches clean or sanitary, and they seem not to regard 
order or decency as essential for Negro coaches. In these coaches 



58 Race Relatio7iship in Border and Northern States 

the Negroes are all thrown together, the educated, cultured, 
refined, wealthy, with the coarse, rough, ignorant, poor and 
vulgar. Of course the same classes of whites ride together in the 
same coaches, but in the white coaches roughness is suppressed 
and order maintained. In the Negro coaches, the rough element 
often smoke, drink, curse, and fight to their own satisfaction, 
fight in the presence of the refined members of their race, and 
often without any interference of the officials. If the cultured 
Negro woman has to make a trip in one of these coaches she often 
reaches her destination, sick and discouraged, and with her dress 
and hat ruined. Most of the day coaches for white people on 
Southern trains are not fit for decent people to ride in. 

Some of the trains do not carry Pullman cars for Negroes, so if 
a refined Negro woman wishes or has to make a trip during the 
night, she is forced to go in a "Jim Crow" day coach, sit up all 
night in surroundings which are far from being conducive to clean- 
liness and good morals. Yet, we say "Niggers are dirty" and 
force them altogether, both educated and illiterate, refined and 
rough, moral and immoral with little or no regard or protection 
for the better element of the race. Consequently, we know little 
about the educated, refined, prosperous members of their race. 
As fast as they enter the better class, they withdraw into a 
world of their own — a world which hes all about us white people, 
yet of whose existence we are scarcely aware. It is largely the 
inefficient, the failures, or the immature and untrained who 
remain with us. We should see in the Negro, first of all, deeper 
than all, a man made in the image of God as truly as we our- 
selves. In some, less developed, to be sure, but whatever grows 
is growable, and anything which grows cannot develop normally 
and healthily, cannot do its best as long as it is crowded down 
into unwholesome environment by a stronger force. 

If all the Negroes were neat and orderly and all the white men 
were gentlemen and all the white women were ladies, the tacit 
recognition of the color line as on the streets, in the stores, in the 
court-room, or at the ball game would obtain without law. But 
we are far from that and until we approach it far nearer than 
what we are it seems necessary to have legal separation to 
establish formal lines in order to save friction, protect the Negro 
en route, and keep him out of the courts. Probably, if we had 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 59 

never begun this separation we would be getting on just as well 
to-day as we are. I do not, however, believe the Negro objects 
very seriously to legal separation, but he does object to paying 
first class fare and getting second and third class service. We 
cannot blame him for this; he would not be human if he did not 
object. I do not think the agitation for strict separation is half 
as keen as it would appear on the surface. Sometimes Negroes 
ride all day and all night through Southern States in Pullman 
cars with whites, their presence known to all the white passengers, 
none of whom voice any objections. I have traveled through 
Southern States several times in Pullman cars in which there 
were some Negroes and I never heard any of the white passengers 
voice any objections. Naturally, we would not expect the 
Negroes to object, as they are getting equal accommodations 
for their money, and the class of whites who ride in Pullman cars 
would not be expected to object, since it is chiefly the lower class 
of both races that causes trouble in the South. 

Probably we would be relieved of many of our difficulties if we 
should adopt the European system of car service. As it is, we are 
penalizing the better class of Negroes. We condemn them as a 
race for not rising, but when the better class, who are rising, 
want better advantages and services we say they are "getting 
too big, " However, I do not believe the remedy lies in a repeal 
of the "Jim Crow" laws, but rather in the proper education of 
both races, in the spread of the sentiment of fair play, and in the 
persistent and consistent insistence upon high moral standards. 
We can give the Negro equal accommodations and equal advan- 
tage on fast trains, Pullman cars, etc., and still be separate, but 
I do not believe he will have it until public sentiment forces the 
railroad companies to do so. Until the lower classes of both 
races are developed far above their present status, it seems 
necessary for some legal separation. But these classes are 
developing and I feel that in the distant future our religious, 
ethical, and social ideas may be quite different from what they 
are to-day. On the other hand, it is possible for us to develop 
a caste system as in India; and it is possible for us to call it 
Christian. But as long as we have the "Jim Crow" coaches we 
should not use them as a means of retarding the progress and 
development of the Negro race. 



60 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

As to whether the "Jim Crow" legislation will spread beyond 
its present boundry, it is impossible to say. The great influx of 
Southern Negroes into the North for the last three years will 
doubtless call forth some radical anti-Negro legislation in the 
near future. The probability is that the "Jim Crow" car may 
be part of it. I heard a prominent Negro educator lecture some 
time ago. In his speech he said the North had gone back fifty 
years in her treatment of the Negro, and he would not be sur- 
prised to see "Jim Crow" cars running through Pennsylvania 
in ten years. A prominent Methodist minister told me he 
thought they should have "Jim Crow" cars in his State— Dela- 
ware. I have heard dozens of white people tell of the trouble 
they had on cars with "coons" and express a desire for separa- 
tion on the cars. There is a strong tendency and desire toward 
separation in the Northern States and it may lead to "Jim Crow" 
ears. 

Early one morning some time ago, I left Virginia traveling all 
day through West Virginia and Ohio. It gave me a splendid 
opportunity to see something of the relationship between the 
Negroes and whites on the trains in these two States. Early in 
the morning we crossed the Virginia line; the porter came 
through the car and removed the "white" sign, but no Negroes 
entered. Later, at one of the stations, the conductor stepped 
away to transact some business and while he was away two 
Negro girls came into the car. They took a seat together near the 
front of the car. All day the seat in front of them and the seat 
immediately behind them remained vacant, though the other 
seats Avere usually about full. After we had stopped at two or 
three more stations and no more Negroes entered I wondered 
why. I noticed and found that the Negro porter stood at the 
entrance of the first car and showed the Negroes into that car. 

Some months ago I was in Cincinnati. In the station I 
noticed that all the Negroes sat on one side. As I passed through 
the gate to catch a train going South, I noticed several Negroes 
passing through also. Now I had to see what would happen 
when the Negroes went to get on the train. I stopped a while 
))y the side of the car and observed that a Negro porter was 
sending all the Negroes into the front car. I also observed that 
no Negroes entered the Pullman cars. I found out that the 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 61 

ticket agent refused to sell Pullman tickets to Negroes on trains 
going South from Cincinnati. 

These are some of the sentiments and some of the things which 
are at work in the North, where "Jim Crow "cars are not legal- 
ized. In the South, there are so many low class Negroes and 
so many of them on trains that separation seems necessary at 
present at least, but in the North, most of the Negroes are of a 
better class — a class far superior to the ordinary Negro found in 
the South. In the North it is pure race prejudice that causes 
separation. It is not because the Negroes arc so low in morals, 
rough, poorly dressed or illiterate, for they are not. However, 
there is a strong desire for separation and it may soon be legal. 

On boats also the desire for separation manifests itself. Some 
boats have a Negro section, others have an invisible line for the 
colored and white passengers. On the boats between Baltimore 
and Washington a Negro is not allowed to rent a state-room 
unless it is either by the hot smelhng pantry, the noisy paddle- 
box, or under the booming whistle, where it is almost impossible 
for him to sleep. Yet he has to pay the same price as a white 
man pays for the good rooms. 

Separation of the two races in street cars appeared in the South 
in 1891, when Georgia passed her law of separation. Louisiana 
followed in 1902; Mississippi, 1904; Tennessee and Florida, 1905; 
Virginia, 1906; North Carolina and Oklahoma, 1907. In 
practically all of the Southern States the two races are separated 
in street cars. In part of them it is a State law; in others it is 
left to the cities and towns to pass such regulations as they see 
fit. In some cities, as Louisville, the act failed to pass. The 
attempt to separate the two races in the street cars in Washington 
City aroused the animosity of the Negroes to boiling heat. 

In all the Northern cities street cars are open to both races 
without any legal separation. Nevertheless, Negroes sometimes 
find it dangerous to ride with white people. In Philadelphia, 
Chester, New York and other Northern cities street cars are 
occasionally attacked by white boys and men and the Negroes 
beaten. Indeed, such shouts as: "Kill the Negro!" "Lynch 
the Negro!" are not uncommon in the North to-day. A Negro 
lurched against a woman who held to a strap on a trolley car in 
New York City. She told him to be more careful with himself. 



62 Race Relationship in Border and Northern Stales 

He struck her, breaking her nose and blackening her eyes. A 
mob of men tried to lynch him but he was rescued by the police. 
Colored people and white seldom sit together in seats in cars if 
there are any vacant seats, and I have heard hundreds of com- 
plaints about Negro men pushing themselves in before white 
women and keeping their scats and letting white women stand 
up on crowded cars. The crowded street car is often a source 
of friction between the whites and Negroes in Northern cities. 

2. We have seen that the Negro is somewhat handicapped in 
travehng on railroads and street cars. When it comes to hotels 
and restaurants we find him much more handicapped. In the 
South the Negro understands that he must go to the hotels, 
boarding-houses and restaurants maintained for Negroes. There 
are enough Negroes in the South to make it possible to maintain 
hotels, restaurants, etc., in almost every town for Negroes. But 
in the North there are not so many Negroes, and not so many of 
them traveling as in the South. Then according to law, in the 
North, they are supposed to be equal to the whites and have the 
same privileges. But what are the conditions in the North? 
For convenience I treat hotels, restaurants, etc., together. 

In Baltimore, the Negro must have a separate bar, he cannot 
go to the white man's hotel, restaurant, or soda fountain. In 
Milwaukee, a Negro, after sitting in a restaurant for forty 
minutes, was told that he could not be served because he was a 
Negro. A Negro went into a restaurant in Detroit and asked 
for accommodations. The clerk told him he could not be served 
on the restaurant side, but if he would go on the saloon side he 
would be served. A Negro was serving on the jury in a town 
in Iowa. The bailiff had arranged wdth a boarding-house to 
serve meals. But when the jurors went for their meals, the 
boarding-house keeper refused to permit the Negro to sit at the 
same table with the white men. A keeper of an ice-cream 
parlor in New York charged a Negro a dollar for a ten-cent plate 
of cream. The judge declared that ice-cream parlors do not 
come under the list of places of public entertainment and amuse- 
ment. 

Practically all Northern States have laws forbidding any dis- 
crimination between the races, but racial adjustments are not 
determined by laws. Many discriminations are made daily in 



Race Relaiionship in Border and Northern States 63 

defiance of the laws, because the white people know that public 
sentiment and the courts are on their side and they will win if a 
case is carried into court, and the Negroes know, by experience 
that they will lose if they carry the case to court. Up to a few 
years ago the Negroes gained most of their cases in courts, but 
that time has passed. 

There are many hotels and restaurants through the North 
where it is known that Negroes will not be served. In other 
restaurants the Negro is ignored ; if he complains, it is explained 
as an oversight. To save his feelings he does not go again to 
that restaurant. In many restaurants the waiters put a spoonful 
of pepper into the milk and a spoonful of salt into the coffee sold 
to a Negro; or charge him five times the regular price for a sand- 
wich, and give him a glass of dish-water to drink. I know of 
no first-class restaurant in any Northern city that will serve 
Negroes. I have asked many of the proprietors how they kept 
the Negroes out. The common reply was, "Well you know 
according to law we can't refuse to sell to them if they insist, but 
we charge them so much that we are not bothered with them." 
The Negro pays one dollar for a ten-cent plate of ice cream and 
two dollars and a half for a fifty-cent dinner. But some of the 
restaurant keepers are now bold enough to tell the Negroes to go 
on some where else. I was standing near the entrance of a 
restaurant in a city in Pennsylvania. I saw two well dressed 
Negroes start to enter. Just then the proprietor said to them: 
"We don't serve Negroes here, you can find a place on down the 
street." It is almost universally agreed that these discrimina- 
tions are increasing every year. 

In several towns in Kentucky, as well as some of the other 
Southern Border States, I found Negroes and whites being served 
in the same restaurants. In some of the cheaper restaurants the 
Negroes and whites sit where they pleased; in others, the colored 
people use one side and the white people the other; and in others 
the colored people are served through the back way. Many 
Negroes run restaurants for white people. 

Race prejudice has developed so in the North that many of the 
best men's furnishing stores, ladies' furnishing stores, shoe stores, 
etc., will not serve Negroes. I have observed in several towns 
and cities in the North, that the best stores, where the wealthy 



64 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

white people trade, Negroes are not served under any considera- 
tion, even at extortionate prices. They say white people, 
especially white ladies do not wish to come in their stores when 
they see Negroes being served. I do not know a case of such 
discrimination in the South. In Louisville, as in other towns 
in the Southern Border States, I found that Negroes could go 
into the stores and buy any thing they had money to pay for 
excepting some of the best drug-stores, where they were excluded 
from the fountains. In some of the stores, however, they will 
not try on shoes or gloves for a Negro. 

3. In the North when the Negro wishes to pass away some 
time in amusement or recreation, he is often perplexed to know 
what to do, owing to the uncertain attitude of public sentiment. 
According to law he has an equal right with white people to all 
places of amusement and recreation, as they are places of pubhc 
accommodation. But according to public sentiment he does not 
usually have this right. He may be admitted; he may have to 
pay an advanced price ; or he may be turned away with an insult. 

When the Negro wishes to go to the theatre or motion picture 
show, he hesitates for he does not know what will take place after 
he gets there. Of course, practically all the high class theatres 
and motion pictures shows in the North exclude Negroes. How- 
ever, there are certain second and third class shows which pre- 
fer to admit Negroes at advanced prices rather than exclude them 
altogether. If they admit them at an advanced price they are 
not liable to have a suit in court. To be sure, the Negro gener- 
ally loses in court ; still there are certain disadvantages attached 
to having a suit in court even if one is sure of winning. The 
higher class shows will endure a suit before they will admit 
Negroes. This attitude is more prominent in the Northern 
States near the border than in those farther South. 

A colored woman was refused tickets to a theatre in Illinois. 
She then had a white man buy the tickets for her and her 
husband, but when they presented their tickets they were re- 
fused admission. In Kansas City, a Negro, mistaken for a white 
man by the clerk in the box-office, bought a seat in the orchestra 
of the theatre. When he presented his ticket the usher refused 
to permit him to occupy the seat called for, but offered him a 
balcony seat in exchange. He carried his case to court and lost. 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 65 

A Negro l)rought suit against a theatre company in Cincinnati 
for refusing to sell him a ticket to the parquet section on account 
of his color. The lower court allowed the Negro damage, but 
the circuit court reversed the decision on the technicality that the 
Negro did not show that the company had instructed the ticket 
agent to refuse tickets to members of his race. 

In this connection I wish to relate some of the experiences of 
four Negroes who were in a class with me in the University of 
Pennsylvania. All were mulattoes. Two were men and two 
were women. One of the men was from Jamaica, the other from 
Virginia. Both were ministers. They said they could walk 
down Woodland Avenue and come to a motion picture show, 
read the sign "5c.", but when they went to buy tickets the price 
suddenly went up and it was worth just five times as much for 
them to see the show as for white people, for they had to pay 
twenty-five cents each. But when they came to the main part 
of the city it was almost impossible for them to get tickets at any 
price. The Negro from Virginia said he was going back South 
for he received much better treatment in the South than he did 
in the North. 

The other two were highly educated, cultured girls, who 
had traveled extensively in Europe. They said that often they 
could not get to see the shows for any amount of money. If they 
went to buy tickets themselves they were refused, and if they 
telephoned for tickets or got some white person to buy the 
tickets for them, when they got there, sometimes they were 
not permitted to enter; at other times they were told that they 
had secured tickets in the "white section," and could not be 
permitted to occupy them, but could have seats in exchange in 
the gallery — "Nigger heaven." 

I have on many occasions been to the best theatres and motion 
picture shows in Philadelphia, New York, and other cities in the 
North, but I do not recall ever seeing a Negro present. In 
Chester, Pennsylvania, some of the theatres have recently estab- 
lished a separate section for Negroes. On the other hand, 
Negroes go to the best theatres in such cities as Louisville. I 
have seen them many times in Macauley's Theatre. And the 
Negroes can rent any of the theatres for commencements and 
other pubUc exercises, if the whites are not using them. In some 



66 Race Relaliojiship in Border and Northern States 

of the cheaper motion picture shows in Covington, and some 
other places, the Negroes and whites all sit together. 

When we consider it from a business point of view, we cannot 
blame the owners of theatres and motion picture shows for their 
treatment of the Negro. Northern people, especially the upper 
class, are far more opposed to sitting beside a Negro than the 
average Southerner supposes. It is simply a matter of business 
that causes them to exclude Negroes or give them gallery seats. 
If they admit Negroes they lose many of their white patrons, 
and this group they cannot afford to lose. 

Neither can we blame the Negroes for wanting to go to these 
shows. The play is advertised to arouse the curiosity of the 
passerby. The Negro is as much aroused as the white person 
and has the same desire to go and see. Negroes, as a rule, do not 
wish to be intruders, but unless they ''butt in" they do not get to 
see any plays or shows in most Northern cities. In practically 
all the towns in the South, Negroes either have theatres and 
"movies" of their own, or some provision is made for them to go 
to the white theatre or "movie." The privileges which are 
granted the Negroes in the South are well understood by both 
groups, and the white people seem just as much adverse to 
usurping the privileges of the Negroes as the Negroes are them- 
selves. But in the North it is hard for the Negroes to know just 
what privileges are granted them. A Southern Negro traveling 
in the North said to me: "In the South we have our place, every 
body knows where it is, and no one takes it from us. But in the 
North, if we have a place, no one seems to know where it is. " 

4. Barbershops and bootblack stands are some more places of 
public accommodation where race prejudice is making headway. 

In the South there are barbershops run by white men for white 
men, barbershops run by Negroes for the accommodation of 
white men, and barbershops run by Negroes for the accommoda- 
tion of Negro men. Often both white and Negro barbers work 
in the same shop side by side. In the North we find some 
similar arrangement. The difference being that in the North 
Negroes are supposed to get accommodations in any barbershop; 
and but few Negroes ever get the chance to shave white men or 
cut their hair. There are not many Negro barbers in the North 
and their number is fast diminishing. They have lost their 



Race Relationship in Border nd NorUiern Stales 67 

position through prejudice and inefficiency. To-day the white 
American, German, Austrian, Itahan, with the other foreigners 
have their trade. 

I know of no barbershop operated by white men where a 
Negro can get accommodations. The Negro who wants a shave 
had better carry his razor along or seek the slums or out-skirts 
for a Negro barbershop. The barbers tell me that when a Negro 
comes in and insists on accommodations, they charge him a 
dollar and a half for a shave and two dollars and a half for a hair 
cut. He never comes again. 

Race prejudice even goes farther in the North than a white 
barber sihaving a Negro. One day I was walking down the 
street in a Northern city with a New Yorker. I asked him if he 
ever had a Negro shave him. He replied: "No, if I never get 
a shave until I get a Negro to shave me I will never have another 
the rest of my life." It took some time to convince him that I 
never made any difference, and at my home in the South, white 
men get Negroes to shave them just the same as they do white 
men, and as far as I knew no one ever thought of making any 
difference unless one did better work than the other; and that 
in some barbershops white and colored barbers worked side by 
side in the same shop. I thought his case an exception, but I 
later found that many Northern people take the same attitude 
toward the Negro barber. A "D.D.," who is well known 
through the North and West, and known in the South by his 
books, told me he would not have a Negro shave him, and he 
knew plenty of white men who were just like him in that respect. 
He gave as the reason, that Negroes have so many skin diseases. 
But I had a feeling that there was some race prejudice behind it 
even though he was a " D. D. " and of English ancestry. 

In the South the Negroes and the white boys are the principal 
"shoeshines." In the North the Negro has lost this job, and 
now it is chiefly in the hands of Italians and Greeks. While the 
Negro polished shoes in the North there was some prejudice 
against him. I had several Northern men tell me that they 
would not have a Negro to polish their shoes. Even the Italians 
sometimes refuse to shine a Negro's shoes. I have seen them 
refuse, and again I have seen them make the Negroes wait until 
all the white people were served. It is very common in the 



68 Race Relationship in Border and Northern Slates 

South to see Negroes and whites poHshing shoes at the same stand. 
I have seen them working side by side even as far North as 
Louisville. 

In 1901, in Rochester, New York, a bootblack refused to black 
the shoes of a Negro. The New York law requires free and 
equal accommodations in hotels and "other places of public 
accommodations." The municipal court of Rochester gave 
judgment to the Negro. The county court reversed the 
decision. The appellate division reversed the decision of the 
county court and sustained the municipal. The court of appeals 
reversed the appellate decision thereby sustaining the county 
court, deciding that "other places of pubhc accommodations" 
does not apply to bootblack stands. 

5. Massachusetts, Illinois, and California have considered 
skating rinks of enough importance to include them in their 
Civil Rights Bill. 

In 1885, in Iowa, a man refused to let a Negro use his skating- 
rink on account of his color. The Negro brought suit but lost 
the case. Several cases were brought into the courts of New 
York, where Negroes were excluded from skating-rinks used by 
white people. 

In Chester, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, and many 
other Northern cities, I find that Negroes are excluded from the 
best pool-rooms. I have never seen white and colored people 
playing pool together in any Northern city, or even playing in 
the same room. 

6. In parks the color line is also being drawn in the North. 
It is strange that it should be drawn here as parks are usually 
very spacious, and the races do not have to come very close 
together, but the Northern whites do not seem to desire to be 
near a Negro, so they are drawing the line. Negroes are excluded 
from all of the popular parks in Cincinnati, and even from the 
Municipal Bath House. In Indianapolis they come in contact 
with the "bungaloo gangs," who beat them frightfully and run 
them out of the parks. In Chicago the white people, with ropes 
and guns, rid Gage Park of Negroes. The fearful race riot in 
Chicago last July was started because the white people were 
trying to drive the Negroes from a bathing beach. In this riot 
34 lives were lost and 1500 were injured. At Clemington, New 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 69 

Jersey — the Atlantic City for the poor — Negroes are allowed to 
go there but one day in the year. On the day the Negroes are 
permitted to go all the white people stay away. In Boston the 
Negroes are practically excluded from many of the parks, play- 
grounds, baths, hospitals, and museums. According to law 
they can use them, but they feel better when they do not try to 
use them. In such work as settlements, clubs and classes, there 
are many of the people of Boston that make it a rule to have 
nothing to do with the Negroes. 

While the color line has not been definitely drawn in many of 
the public libraries in the North, it is generally understood that 
Negroes are not wanted and few make use of them. One of the 
librarians in the public library in Chester, Pennsylvania, told me 
that there had been but two Negroes in there in three months. 
After remaining in the public library in St. Louis for some time 
and seeing no Negroes in there I asked if they were excluded. I 
was told that they were not excluded, but were unwelcome. 

When we turn South we find another force at work, one of 
cooperation. While the two races are and have been separated 
in public places, still there is a spirit of cooperation that is grow- 
ing rapidly. In a number of Southern cities we find the white 
people and colored working together and establishing parks, 
public baths, public play grounds, etc., for the Negroes. The 
Baptist World August 7, 1919, says: "Since Chicago suffered 
from race rioting on the beach, The Evening Post of Louisville, 
has come out in favor of a public swimming pool for the Negroes. 
Why not? The principle of equality of rights under the law and 
the public good both call for it," In a small pool in Louisville 
used by the children, I saw both white and colored children 
bathing without the least bit of friction. 

Louisville has two very good public libraries for Negroes. 
The Negroes can go to the three white libraries and get books or 
do reference work, but they do not use the general reading room. 
When the staffs of the different libraries have their joint meet- 
ings the whites and Negroes meet and sit together to discuss 
their mutual problems. In the pubhc library in Lexington, 
Kentucky, the Negroes go among the shelves just the same as 
the white people, but they do not remain in the general reading 
room. In Covington, the Negroes use the public library just the 



70 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

same as the white people. In Paris the Negroes use the public 
library, but they have no general reading room. 

When it comes to parks, there is either no discrimination or 
some provision is made for the Negroes. I saw Negroes playing 
tennis and other games in several of the parks in Louisville. The 
only complaint I heard was, one Negro said that sometimes the 
white people took too many of the tennis courts. In the Willow 
Grove Park, Covington, the Negroes usually take the lower 
section. The famous Blue Grass Park near Lexington is used 
by the white people in the early part of the summer and by the 
Negroes the latter part. This is a great improvement over the 
conditions of a few years ago when the Negro had no such advan- 
tages. No one formerly thought such things were necessary for 
Negroes. But now both races are working together, slowly, of 
course, but steadily and determinedly, to develop the Negro 
give him a chance to have pleasure and recreation as the white 
people enjoy. The North is portraying a spirit of antagonism, 
the South a spirit of cooperation. Really I believe the two races 
are much closer together to-day in the South with all their laws 
of separation, than they are in the North with all their laws 
against separation. 



CHAPTER V 



RACE DISTINCTIONS IN THE ECONOMIC AND 
POLITICAL WORLD 

In starting out to deal with the economic and poHtical side of 
the Negro question I reaUze that I have an ahnost insurmountable 
task. The economic side of the question is very complex and has 
called forth grave comment. This is especially true in the North, 
and is becoming so in the South. On the other hand, the 
political side has been a very complicated and perplexing problem 
for the South and is becoming so in the North. The South 's 
method of dealing with the problem has caused her to be severely 
criticized and condemned by the North. This is not true of all 
the North, but most of it. A few Northern men even agitated 
the using of armed force to stop the South in her seemingly wild 
career in dealing with the Negro. But now the sensible, wide 
awake, broad-minded men of both North and South are taking 
another view of the whole problem. What the outcome is 
going to be, it is impossible to forecast. With this as with all 
other political, social and economical questions, we can see what 
the present status is, what the tendency is, but as to what the 
future is going to be we can only surmise. I believe, however, 
that the next few years are going to find the Negro with far less 
political power in the North than the little he now has. At the 
same time, I think, he will gain political power in the South. He 
is fast gaining economic power in the South, and at present, due 
to the European War, he has more power in the North than 
formerly, but what is going to happen in the next few years 
is an unanswerable question. But before going farther I must 
turn to the respective subheads of this chapter. 



71 



72 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

1. I wish to deal, first, with the professional and business 
class of Negroes. 

It is said that in India the populace is divided horizontally by 
caste and vertically by religion. In America race prejudice 
serves both as a horizontal and a vertical separation. Doubtless 
it is for this reason that the Negro race demands that its preachers, 
teachers, physicians, lawyers and business men shall for the most 
part be men of its own blood and sympathy. 

When the Negro worshiper gained conscious self-respect he 
grew tired of the black pews and upper galleries of the white 
churches assigned him before the Civil War, and began to seek a 
place of worship more compatible with his sense of freedom and 
dignity. Hence there arose the Negro church and Negro clergy. 
Very early the Negro evinced a decided inchnation, in some 
places, to "worship God under his own vine and fig tree." This 
spirit caused many Negro preachers, like Melchizedek of old, to 
spring into existence without announcement or preparation. 
This was the first professional class to arise and proportionally 
still the most numerous, there being some 17,495 of them in the 
United States. To-day the religious interest of the Negro race 
is almost wholly under the supervision of the Negro clergy. Out- 
side of the Catholic Church it is about as difficult to find a white 
minister over a Negro congregation as it is to meet with the 
reverse phenomenon. The Methodist and Baptist churches 
include well-nigh the entire colored race and are wholly under 
Negro ecclesiastical control. 

The Negro minister, as a professional man, we may say began 
before the Civil War. For a while he was looked upon with a 
bit of suspicion by the white slave owners, but since the war he 
has been gaining the confidence of the white people. He, as a 
professional man, does not have to come in contact with the 
white people as much as the lawyers, teachers, physicians, etc., 
so race prejudice does not affect his profession to the extent that 
it does the other professional men of his race. While he has 
never been permitted to become the pastor of a white congrega- 
tion, yet he is freer to pursue his professional duties without 
meeting with much race prejudice. As I shall deal more at 
length on this subject in another chapter I shall leave it for the 
present. 



Race Eelationship in Border and Northern States 73 

The rise of the Negro teacher is due almost wholly to the 
outcome of the Civil War. The South believed in separation 
in schools as well as in other things. Hence a large class of 
Negro teachers were brought into the arena. This class has 
steadily increased until now there are some 30,000 thus engaged 
in the United States. These teachers are engaged mainly in the 
South. However, there are some in the North, but their number 
is very small. Their work in the South, and mainly in the North, 
is confined to teaching in Negro schools. There are, however, a 
few Negroes in the North teaching in mixed schools just as there 
are white teachers in the South teaching in Negro schools. The 
Negro teacher is finding it more difficult each year to secure a 
position in mixed schools in the North. The tendency is to shut 
them out completely, and I think it only a question of a few years 
until there will be no Negroes teaching in mixed schools. 

According to the census for 1910, Maine had 1363 Negroes, but 
only six were teachers and three were ministers. New Hampshire 
had 564 Negroes, no teachers and only one minister. Vermont 
had 1620 Negroes, one of whom was a teacher, one a minister and 
one a physician. These Negro teachers may have been teaching 
in private schools. But with no more teachers among that 
number of Negroes in the Northern New England States, it seems 
to me, there must be some objections. I am sure there is a 
decided tendency to eliminate the Negro teacher from teaching 
in mixed schools in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and 
Illinois. In cities like Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, 
Indianapolis, and Chicago it is almost impossible for a Negro to 
teach in a school where any white children go. I am informed 
that in all the Chicago public schools there is but one Negro teach- 
ing in a mixed school. This one has been retained because she has 
been there for a number of years and rendered excellent service. 
As far as I know she is the only Negro teaching in a mixed school 
in the Northern Border States, and since Chicago is to have 
separate schools, as a result of the race riot, she will be trans- 
ferred to a colored school. I have related in a previous chapter 
how a Negro girl was ejected from a school in Philadelphia 
to make place for a white girl. Other cases could be related if 
space permitted. We find no Negro as a member of the faculty 
of any of our higher universities, such as Harvard, Yale, Penn- 



74 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

sylvania, Columbia, or Chicago, although they have men of many 
other races as members of their faculties. I haven 't the least doubt 
that a man like Du Bois is as well qualified to be a professor in 
one of the universities as many of the men who are members of 
their faculties. Yet, one need not have a very great imagination 
to presage the outcome of a university which chose even a Du 
Bois, who is more white than black, as a member of its faculty. 

The Negro physician has only recently entered the arena in 
sufficient numbers to call forth attention. At first it was with 
difficulty that* the Negro physician gained a foothold in the 
medical profession. The white people, of course, would not 
employ him and the Negro patient refused to put confidence in 
him, notwithstanding the two were closely associated socially. 
Only as he was able to show his ability to treat diseases as 
successfully as the white physician was he able to overcome this 
feeling. While it was hard to overcome all this, nevertheless 
his success has often been little less than marvelous. Race 
prejudice probably gives him a few patients, yet if he did not 
secure as good results in treating diseases as the white practitioner 
he would soon find himself with no patients on whom he could 
demonstrate his skill. 

The Negro physician is the best trained professional class the 
Negroes have. He has to take the same prehminary training 
and pass the same examinations as the white physician. This is 
also the case with the Negro lawyer and pharmacist, but the 
courses of study and the examinations for these professions are 
not as difficult as medicine. 

The practice of the Negro physician is confined chiefly to 
members of his own race, unless he locates in a town where there 
are very few Negroes. Though I met some Negro physicians in 
Kentucky that told me they did a considerable practice among 
the white people. He is also hindered in another way. In cities 
like Cincinnati, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York and Boston 
the Negro is being shut out of hospitals. Not being able to 
operate in these hospitals is a serious handicap. He is not 
permitted to associate with the white members of his profession. 
They refuse to give him a consultant, and no white physician 
would think of having a Negro as a partner in the practice of his 
profession. The Negroes are not sufficiently organized and do 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 75 

not have the money at their disposal to establish and maintain 
first class hospitals, yet this is what they will have to do. I feel 
that the Negro physician is surer of success in the South than in 
the North. Many of them are succeeding in a remarkable 
manner in the South, and are doing much to uplift their race, 
and are much respected by the white people. In the North 
some white physicians refuse to treat Negro patients, but in the 
South, I know of no white physician refusing to treat a Negro 
patient simply because he is a Negro. This is a test for the 
Negro physician and calls forth his best skill as he is constantly 
in competition with the white physician. In 1910 there were 
3,177 Negro physicians in the United States. These were 
located mostly in the South. 

The Negro lawyer has not been so fortunate as his medical 
confrere. The relationship between lawyer and client is more 
business like and not so personal and confidential as between 
physician and patient. Another element enters in to check the 
success of the Negro lawyer. The judge and the jury are white 
in some cases a mixed jury — and it is supposed that the white, 
lawyer has more weight with the judge and jury than the Negro 
lawyer. The Negro lawyer is to a remarkable degree over- 
coming this feeling and other racial feelings, but I doubt if he 
will ever be able to meet with the success with which his ministe- 
rial, pedagogical and medical confreres have met. Some Negro 
lawyers in the South as well as dentists and other professional 
classes do a considerable practice among the white people. A 
prominent Negro lawyer in Louisville told me that if he felt 
disposed to do so, he could confine his practice to the white people 
and have more than he could do. 

The American Bar in 1912 had a serious disturbance when it 
was discovered that a Boston Negro was a member of the 
association. The president of the association was afraid the 
Negro — Mr. Lewis — might wish to attend the annual convention. 
The Negro was accused of getting elected by "misapprehension." 
Feeling ran high among the members, but after much debating 
the Negro was permitted to retain his membership. 

In a certain sense the destiny of the Negro race in the United 
States hangs on the shoulders of these four professional classes. 
A far graver responsibility and a far heavier burden rest on these 



76 Race Relationship in Border arid Northern States 

professional Negroes than on the respective professional class 
of whites. The Negro preacher must meet every conceivable 
form of acquired as well as "original" sin. The Negro teacher 
has to meet with ignorance and pedagogical obtuseness in a more 
marked degree than the white teacher. The Negro physician 
must understand all the variety of diseases of the white people 
and the peculiar diseases of the Negro. The Negro lawyer's 
sphere covers the whole gamut, involving the right of person 
and property. These professional classes should have the best 
training which our higher institutions of learning are capable of 
giving. This is not only necessary for the conservation of the 
Negro, but for the whites as w^ell. By reason of the stratum 
which the Negro occupies in our social scheme, the race is an 
easy prey for vice, crime and disease which affects the whole life 
of the Nation. Crime, vice and disease have no race prejudice; — 
they often do not stop to draw the line of social equality. If 
they make inroads upon the Negro to-day, they will attack the 
white man to-morrow. If it is necessary for us, a dominant race 
with a higher social environment, to be qualified with the best 
educational training, it surely is necessary for the professional 
Negroes to be also well qualified to serve as philosophers, guides 
and friends to over ten million unfortunate Negroes whom they 
have to serve in our midst. 

Negroes also furnish a small quota of editors, pharmacists, 
authors, dentists, musicians, actors, artists, etc. Some of the 
best known writers in America for the last few years have been 
Negroes, such as Washington, Du Bois, and Kelly Miller. 
Negroes have been entering the different professions very rapidly 
for the last few years and have been meeting with success, yet 
they have less than one-fourth of their professional quota. 

The Negro boy who becomes a pharmacist or a dentist and 
the Negro girl who becomes a trained nurse finds race prejudice 
retarding their progress. Unless the Negro pharmacist finds a 
position in a Negro drug store, he can find nothing to do. A 
young Negro pharmacist applied to an owner of a drug store for 
a position. He received the following reply : "I wouldn 't have a 
Negro to sweep my store much less to stand behind the counter. " 
The Negro dentist must practice among his own people and the 
Negro nurse must seek a place in a Negro hospital. 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 77 

If the Negro enters the mercantile business or any simihir 
business in the North, he finds himself in a struggle against race 
prejudice. The white people will not trade with him. This is 
not the case, however, in the South, for here one sees many white 
people patronize Negro merchants. But this is not the case in 
the North as many writers testify. 

If Negro boys and girls complete a course in bookkeeping or 
shorthand or wish to secure a clerical position, Avho Avill employ 
them? He who would expect to find a Negro clerk in a white 
man's store or a Negro bookkeeper or stenographer in a white 
man's office is surely not acquainted with the conditions in the 
North to-day. Some years ago a Negro answered an advertise- 
ment for a clerk in the suburbs of Philadelphia. " What do you 
suppose we 'd want of a Negro? " was the answer. Even in Boston 
some three or four years ago the authorities of vocational guid- 
ance work in Boston public schools decided not to teach stenog- 
raphy to young Negro women because investigation seemed to 
prove that positions would not be open to such women in Boston. 
Investigations seem to prove that the struggle of the professional 
and business Negro in the North is becoming more severe every 
year. On the other hand, these same classes have a much better 
opportunity in the South. Of course the white people do not 
employ these classes in the South very much more than form- 
erly or any more than the North, but there are so many more 
Negroes in the South and they are developing so rapidly, so they 
have more opportunities. 

2. Now let us see how the Negro is succeeding as a skilled 
and unskilled laborer. 

I know of no Northern city where the birth rate of Negroes 
exceeds the death rate. Yet the Negro population is rapidly 
increasing in most of them. But even now Negroes form 1.72 
per cent, of the population North of Mason and Dixon's Line. 
In this same boundary there are fourteen foreigners to every 
Negro, yet the Negro's economic struggle becomes more inten- 
sified as the years pass. In the North the Negro's economic 
problem is chiefly a problem of the city, but in the South it is 
more a problem of the rural districts. In the North 78 per cent, 
of the Negroes live in the cities and only 22 per cent, in the 
country. In the South this ratio is reversed. So the Negro of 



78 Race Relationship in Border and Northern Stales 

the South is primarily a farmer, but in the North primarily a 
wage-earner. 

Some one may say the Negro problem is primarily a problem 
in economic adjustment and that the Negro should be given 
such training as will fit him for a place in our industrial life. 
Give him industrial training in the broad sense of the phrase, 
such as will develop in him character and intelligence necessary 
for efficiency on the one hand and for citizenship on the other. 
Let him learn a trade. Dr. Washington and others have demon- 
strated the feasibility and practicability of such industrial train- 
ing for the Negroes in the South on a large scale, and it has 
worked well there. What about the North, has it and is it 
working well there? What is the attitude of the labor unions 
toward the Negro? 

In 1897 The American Federation of Labor reaffirmed an 
earlier declaration that ''the working people must unite and 
organize irrespective of creed, color, sex, nationality or politics." 
In 1910, this was still its declared poHcy. Prior to 1900 the 
Federation, in its efforts to have all affiliated union carry out 
this policy, insisted that those unions desirings to enter the 
affiliation must eliminate the color clause from their constitutions 
and laws. For several years the International Association of 
Machinists was excluded because it refused to remove the word 
"white" from its constitutional qualification for admission. 
This same thing is said to have been at one time the chief obstacle 
preventing the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen from 
affiliating with the Federation. But Avithin recent years these 
unions which deny admission to Negroes have not been excluded. 
In 1910 the following unions which explicitly exclude Negroes 
were affiliated with the American Federation of Labor: Tele- 
graphers, Commercial Telegraphers, Railway Mail Clerks, Wire 
Weavers, Machinists and Boiler Makers and Iron Ship Builders. 

Within recent years various instances of local discrimination 
against Negroes have arisen Avhich exclude them from becoming 
members of labor unions. These instances are found, not only 
in the Northern border cities, but as far North as Detroit and 
Boston. This is either effected by denying them admission to 
the union of the white people, or by refusing to give consent to 
charter a representative Negro local union, or by rejecting a 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 79 

Negro applicant holding a transfer card. The denial for admis- 
sion to the white local union is probably the commonest cause 
operating to exclude Negroes. Very few unions welcome the 
Negro with open arms, although there are a few as in the mining 
districts of Alabama, and the Central of Georgia Railway, 
others, especially in the North, are sullenly indifferent, or admit 
only a few Negroes, if any. Most of the unions in Boston 
expressly forbid discrimination on the grounds of race, color, or 
religion, but the individual members of the unions grant that it 
would be next to impossible for a Negro to become a member. 
In Pittsburg there are only two trade unions that admit Negroes 
to membership. Some of the higher officials of the labor unions 
are greatly astonished when they learn that there are some white 
people that are interested in the Negro question. 

When we turn to the South we find that a few years ago on the 
Georgia and Florida Railway the white and colored firemen 
struck for higher wages. Mobs of both white and colored men 
held up trains. The Negroes were as loyal to the unions as the 
whites and the strike was won. About the beginning of the year 
of 1913, the white carpenters in Key West, Florida, struck 
because two Negro workmen were discharged. The white 
members of the carpenter's union refused to return to work 
until the Negroes had been reinstated. These examples show 
us that the white and colored people belong to the same unions 
in the South, and that the Negroes make loyal union men, and 
that they are supported according to union rules by the white 
members of the organization. I have failed to find a single case 
on record where a worthy Negro was refused admittance into 
alabor union in the South. 

I think two things are responsible for the development of 
antagonism between the labor unions and the Negro in the North. 
Often when the union men go out on a strike in the North, the 
employer sends South and has a supply of Negroes come up 
and work, employing them as strike breakers. Of course the 
Negroes should not be blamed very seriously for this; they are 
only following the white man's guidance. But the union men 
are trying to gain the strike and they do not want any one 
employed in their places. Some time ago a Negro went from 
Alabama to Philadelphia to work, driving a coal wagon for Geo. 



80 Race Relalionshij) in Border and Northern States 

B. Newton Co. He worked for three days as a strike breaker, 
but on the fourth day a brickbat falHng on the side of his head 
from a fourth story window persuaded him to stop immediately 
his strike breaking career and make a swift hegira back to 
Alabama. The riot in East St. Louis is said to have l^een caused 
by Southern Negroes being imported to break a strike. Also it 
was one of the underlying causes of the trouble in Chicago. 
Then the laborer in the North does not like to work by the side 
of a Negro. There seems to be a general antagonism between 
the two races to the extent that the white workmen want nothing 
to do with the Negroes. The presence of these imported strike 
breaking Negroes causes race prejudice to develop very rapidly. 
The labor unions say they do not admit the Negro because he 
is not well trained and is not reliable, but the chief cause is the 
general antagonism between the two classes of laborers. In 
general the Northern white laborer is violently opposed to working 
by the side of a Negro. More than once it has happened that a 
Negro going from the South with a union transfer card has drawn 
his pay without being permitted to go to work on the job. When 
he was permitted to go to work all the white men quit, so it was 
better to pay him and let him Avalk the streets for a while, until 
he became disgusted or the job was finished, than to permit him 
to go to work and all the white men quit the job unfinished. 

I heard a prominent Negro relate his experience when he first 
went North to get work. He is a bright mulatto, his grand- 
father being a white man, a former governor of North Carolina. 
Being a skilled mechanic, he went from Virginia to Philadelphia 
to work. He tried at many different places to get employment 
as a Negro, only to be refused at every place. They needed 
help but he was a Negro. He then decided he was so near 
white, he would try running the gauntlet on them. So he 
started out to get work as a white man and the first place he 
tried he got the job. He worked as a w^hite man for five years 
and no one in the shop knew the difference. Finally, one day 
as he was walking up the street with the foreman, the foreman 
asked him something about the Negroes in the South. The 
mulatto then confessed that he himself was a Negro. On hearing 
this the foreman exclaimed: "My God, man! Don't say any- 
thing about that in the shop, for if you do every man I have will 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 81 

quit work. " But the mulatto was tired of playing Mr. Hyde and 
he soon decided to return to the full glory of Dr. Jekyll. He 
returned South and married a Negro wife. 

We have seen that the Negro who is already a skilled worker 
has a hard time securing work at his trade in the North owing to 
the attitude of the unions and laborers in general. When it comes 
to the Negro boy in the North who wants to learn a trade, the 
industrial schools find that it is not worth Avhile to give them 
industrial training because there seems to be no work open to 
them. If one applies for a position with electric or other 
industrial companies where he can go in and learn the business, 
he is informed that no Negroes, however promising, are wanted. 
It is fifty times harder for the colored boy to secure work of this 
nature than it is for the white boy. If the colored boy does 
happen to secure a job of this nature, to hold it he must do better 
work than the white boy, and even then, his promotion is slow 
and uncertain. 

The general exclusion of Negroes from all places where they 
might acquire business and industrial training is a serious handi- 
cap to their progress. In the high skilled and best paid trades 
they are as far removed as they are from the position of cashi(u- 
of a bank. A few months ago a friend handed me a letter which 
he had received from Mr. Scott Porter, secretary of The Master 
Builders Association of Akron, Ohio, In that letter Mr. Porter 
said: "We have had numerous inquiries relative to colored 
mechanics and laborers, and beg to advise that we cannot use any 
of this class of people in our city. Our object in advertising is 
not to acquire an undesirable class, but we certainly do welcome 
all desirable people who wish to come to Akron." He evidently 
counts Negroes as undesirable citizens. 

The white people in the North sometimes get very enthusiastic 
about the education of the Negro in the South, but when it comes 
to employing one they will let him starve to death before they 
will give him a chance to make an honest living. The Negro can 
walk the streets of the Northern cities day after day seeking 
employment, and he finds every door closed against him, except 
in menial service. Many of the best trained and educated 
have to turn to the South if they wish to do anything 
but odd jobs and heavy manual labor. The Negro is 



82 Race Rclalionship in Border and Northern Stales 

past-master in the use of euphemisms but the hotels and restau- 
rants do not want him. Many of them are good machinists but 
the manufacturing estabhshments will not have them. Since the 
riots in Chicago even the packers and owners of the stockyards 
and other industrial plants, which were the principal employers 
of Negro labor, have met and reached an understanding and final 
decision to return Negro laborers to the South and give white men 
the employment. Race prejudice has so increased in the North 
that a few years ago at Marion, Massachusetts, and about four 
years ago in New York City, town meetings were held providing 
for a vote on the question of employing only white men on town 
work. 

The masses of Negroes in the North are being held down to 
the lowest, most menial occupations. The Negro has room at 
the bottom but no fixed industrial status. Of course the Negro 
race is a child race, left behind in the struggle for existence, on one 
hand, because of original unfavorable environment and con- 
sequent inheritance of physical and mental conditions that, at 
present, foredoom to failure their competition on equal terms 
with other races. But on the other hand, they are behind 
because of race prejudice. This has caused them to lose the 
occupations that were confessedly theirs in the North. It seems 
that the Northern people have abandoned their liberal doctrine 
and are now going to the other extreme. They, in general, seem 
to be doing all they can to keep the Negro away from the North, 
except for the last few years owing to the labor situation caused 
by the European War. Now that the war is over they seem to be 
doing all they can to rid themselves of the Negroes who came 
up during the war. I have read of many Negroes returning 
South saying: "I'se got 'nuff of de Norf." Dozens of Negroes 
working in the munition factories told me they did not like the 
North and did not intend to stay any longer than the war 
lasted. Many said they came there to keep out of the army. 
I said to a Negro from Jacksonville, Florida. "How would 
you like to be in Jacksonville to-night?" His reply was: "I'd 
a thousand times rather be there than here." He continued, 
" Yousc can make a lot of money up here, but it takes everything 
to live. Can't get anything fresh, everything you buy is rotten, 
and they don 't care as much for you as they do a dog. " Another 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern Stales 83 

said: "Dcsc people get ine. I ran on do train for twelve years 
befo' I come here, and can handle a train all right. But they 
wouldn't let me get up on that train and even turn it around 
to save my life." Another Negro said to me: "I was raised up 
here among these people and served on the police force in both 
New York and Philadelphia, but' these are the damnedest people 
I ever saw. They pat you on the back when they want a favor 
and cut your throat the rest of the time. I married in South 
Carolina and have a farm down there and I expect to go back 
down there and live. " A few nights afterward another Negro and 
a Filipino had a fight and the whites swore the Filipino clear. 
This Negro with others quit and left for South Carolina. 

It is a fact that the Negro usually gets better wages in the 
North than in the South. But what becomes of the better wages? 
They go for exorbitant rentals. All investigators testify that 
the Negro has to pay higher rents than the white people and get 
poorer houses, or rather rooms, for many of them do not have 
much more than a room. Then they have to pay for fuel to keep 
them warm through the long Northern winters, pay for lights, 
water, etc. Yet most of the Negroes seem to have the idea that 
if they get $15 per week in a Northern city and it costs them $15 
per week to live, that they are doing better than in the South 
where they make $10 per week and it costs them $8 per week to 
live. When the Negro gets into the North whatever he gets he 
has to pay for. It is quite different from the sunny South, 
where things often come from the white man's table free of 
charge, where he borrows money from his white friend, both 
knowing it will never be repaid. A Southern Negro working in 
the North said to me: "What we get here we have to pay for, 
and if we don 't have any money we don 't get anything. No- 
body gives us anything and nobody will trust us. " 

These higher rentals and other expenses force the Negro into 
unsanitary houses. Frequently they are forced to labor without 
sufficient food and clothing, and without proper rest. Com- 
petition compels them to follow the hardest and most exposed 
occupations in order to gain a livelihood. The rigors of the 
pitiless commercial and economic competition of the North, they 
feel in all its intensity. As a wage-earner the Negro secures 
neither the respect of his employer nor a competence for him- 



84 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

self, but he must live in these conditions which bring on 
sickness and premature death. 

The Negro, of course, must bear part of the blame for his 
present condition. Laziness, lack of foresight, misdirected 
energy, pleasure-seeking, immorality, have all been more or less 
potent factors in keeping him in poverty. Much of this, I 
think, is due to the training he received in the slavery regime. 
He portrays these characteristics in the South, but the Southern 
people are accustomed to them and do not seem to pay very 
much attention to these defects. But the Northern white man 
has not been accustomed to such characteristics, and when the 
Negro "plays-off " on him, he has no more to do with Negroes 
and ceases to be a friend to them. His relationship is more 
business-like and less personal. The Negro in the North is in 
a higher developed industrial atmosphere and he does not seem 
to be able to adjust himself to the new conditions of living as a 
wage-earner. He has left the South where the prejudice is 
social and political, but in the North, while it is not so much that, 
it is more of an economic struggle, forcing him into menial service, 
thus striking at the heart of his existence. He works harder, no 
doubt, than he did in the South, but the high rents, etc., run up 
his expenses at such a rate that he has to call his wife and children 
into service to get enough to live; even then the words of the old 
rhyme apply to him: 

"Rufus Rastus Johnson Brown, 

What you gwine terdo when de rent comes 'round?" 
It seems to me that the Negro masses must seek the South for 
economic freedom. Booker Washington said: "Whatever 
other sins the South may be called upon to bear, when it comes 
to business, pure and simple, it is in the South that the Negro 
is given a man's chance in the commercial world. "'-^ Again he 
wrote: "It has been my privilege to study the conditions of my 
people in nearly every part of America; and I say, without 
hesitation, that, with some exceptional cases, the Negro is at 
his best in the Southern States. "■^'' And again he said: "Wher- 
ever the Negro has lost ground industrially in the South, it is not 
because there is a prejudice against him as a skilled laborer on 

=3 Up from Slavery, pp. 119-120. 

-* Future of the American Negro, p. 202. 



Races Relationship in Border and Northern States 85 

the part of the native Southern white man."^^ Dr. A. C. ElUs, 
in a speech at the Sagamore Sociological Conference, said: "I 
believe that the Negro is given a fairer economic chance in the 
South than in the North." 

According to the statements of these men and others which I 
could mention, it appears that there is nothing to hinder the 
economic development of the Negro in the South. The question 
that naturally follows— is he taking advantage of his opportuni- 
ties? Yes, to a remarkable degree. Nearly 9,000,000 Negroes 
live in the South, and about 7,000,000 of these live in the rural 
districts. Of the 150,000,000 acres of the improved land in the 
South, something like 100,000,000 acres are cultivated by Negro 
labor. Out of every eleven bales of cotton produced in the South 
seven are produced by Negroes. From 1900 to 1910 the total 
value of farm property owned by the colored farmers in the South 
increased from S177,404,688 to $492,893,218, or 177 per cent. 
The census shows that the number of Negro landowners is 
increasing through the South about 50 per cent, more rapidly 
than the white landowners. Surely these figures speak well for 
the Negroes in the South. 

3. The Negro in politics has long been a bugaboo in the South. 
It has served as a weapon to wield the white South into one 
political party to oppose the Negro who has been an advocate of 
the other party, due to Northern training. It has also served to 
keep alive the old animosity between the Northern and Southern 
white men. The Reconstruction Period of Negro rule in the 
South presents, to my mind, the most tragic scene that ever befell 
any part of the New World. But soon the South determined to 
have no more of that, and after a short time she found a means of 
eliminating the Negro politician and voter. She saw the Negro 
was not prepared to run the political "machine" in the South. 
Any State in the Union might give the ballot to boys of twelve 
years of age, but no State could guarantee its proper use in the 
hands of these boys. This is just what happened in the South 
after the Civil War. Even to-day the Negro en masse is still 
a baby— a political baby. After the war the Negro was still 
a slave in everything but name, yet he was asked to become at 
once a governing citizen. No amendment can over night make 

25 Future of the American Negro, p. 78. 



86 Rates Relationship in Border and Northern States 

freedmen of slaves. Freedom is a gradual growth, and it is 
vain to bestow it on those who have not earned it. 

Before 1890 there was no law on the statute-books in the South 
to prevent Negroes from voting, yet in some places they were 
not permitted to do so for fear of mob violence, in other places 
their votes were disregarded, but in others they voted freely. In 
general, many illegal methods were used to discountenance their 
voting. In 1890, Mississippi made the famous constitutional 
amendment to keep or restrict the Negro vote to what she con- 
sidered proper bounds. South Carolina followed in 1895; 
Louisiana, 1898; North Carolina, 1900; Alabama and Virginia, 
1901; Georgia, 1908; Maryland has tried the same game but has 
failed in every effort. Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, North 
Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Oklahoma passed the 
famous "Grandfather Clause." Mississippi, Georgia, South 
Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia have the "Understanding 
Clause." California, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New 
Hampshire, Washington, Wyoming, and the Philippines have a 
form of the "Grandfather Clause." Florida, Arkansas, Ten- 
nessee and Texas have not made any constitutional amendments 
that can be called suffrage amendments. Maine, Massachusetts 
and Vermont are about as strict in their registration requirements 
as any of the Southern States. In fact, Mississippi copied 
verbatim her qualifications of suffrage from Massachusetts and 
Vermont. When Maine added her educational quahfication 
in 1893, she provided that the qualification should not apply to 
any one who had the right to vote in January, 1893, or to any 
one sixty years of age at that time. Yet she joined in rebuking 
the South for doing the same thing. Pennsylvania and Delaware 
require the payment of poll tax just as many Southern States do. 
In fact, suffrage is very restricted anyway in the United States. 
Certain standards are set in all States. Boys under twenty-one 
years of age cannot vote regardless of how well educated they 
may be. Women are just now gaining the right of the ballot. 
Criminals, idiots, and the insane cannot vote anywhere. In 1912 
there were over 90,000,000 people in the United States, but 
only 15,000,000 voted in the Presidential election, or about one 
in every six. 



Race Relationshi]} in Border and Northern States 87 

Many of the Southern States have passed the restrictive regis- 
tration quahfications. Before these were passed, Negroes were 
disfranchised by illegal methods, as has been indicated. Now 
the Negro who can read and write satisfactorily to the register 
can vote according to law, but yet, many of them who are fully 
equal to the task of citizenship are illegally denied the right to 
vote. We Americans write and read of the horrible way in 
which the Jews are treated by the Rumanians, how the 
Rumanian government made the Jews serve in the army and 
yet denied them the right of citizenship. But right here in " free " 
America the Negroes were drafted and made serve in the army 
and fight in France, and yet when it comes to having a voice in 
the Government they are treated as aliens. But things are 
changing in the South, and to-day many Negroes are voting. 
The great trouble in the South is old party lines. If these could 
be changed in order to do away with the idea prevalent in the South 
that the white man must vote the Democratic ticket to hold 
"white supremacy," and the Negro must vote the straight 
RepubUcan ticket, conditions would doubtless be better. These 
things cause the two races to stand apart politically when really 
their interests are the same, and cause many Negroes to be 
denied the right of suffrage. A complete breaking up of the old 
parties and party ideas would probably bring quick relief to the 
illegal methods, but as it is, things are changing. Many Negroes 
in the South are voting to-day and their number seems to be 
rapidly increasing. According to the newspapers, after the 
Presidential election, many Negroes broke their historical 
allegiance to the Repubhcan party in several places in the South. 
On the other hand, the Republican party is gaining many whites 
in the South. I think things are changing for the better along 
political lines in the South. The Negro as he shows himself 
industrious, progressive, honest, chaste, loyal to his family and 
community is winning his full manhood in the South. 

While the Southern States were passing these restrictive 
registration laws and for some time afterwards, the South was 
condemned very severely by the North, but for the last few years 
this condemnation has about ceased. This indicates that a 
change is taking place in the North. The North is more than 
half convinced that the South was right in imposing some 



88 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

limitation upon the franchise. The Northern people have come 
to see, just as the Southern people saw at the time that the Negro 
was not prepared for citizenship. But to-day those that vote in 
the South are fully equal to the task of citizenship. 

But what are the conditions in the North? After the Civil 
War the Negro was very popular in the North. He often received 
special honors. Often he was an office holder. But a change 
has also been taking place in the North. The conspicuousness 
of the Negro at elections has been one of the chief causes of race 
prejudice. Of course the Negro vote is important if he holds 
the balance of power in the city, town, or ward, otherwise he is 
not consulted or given any of the spoils. Thus finding their 
votes not needed or sought, many of the better class do not vote. 
This does not make any difference, however, for the ward bosses 
have the names of all who registered, and vote all who do not 
come to the polls. Of those who do come, they are met before 
they get to the polls, and if they will sell their vote it is bought for 
a trifle. 

The South disfranchises the Negro by law and other illegal 
methods, and the North disfranchises him by money and other 
illegal methods. The Negro vote is bought and sold in the open 
market in practically all of our Northern cities and towns. The 
Negroes vote en bloc; they vote cheap, and are easily controlled. 
They do not get as much political recognition as the Italians, 
Irish, Jews and some other foreigners. There is not the first 
principle of right in much of our dealing with the Negro politi- 
cally to-day. They are thoroughly American in spirit, habit, taste, 
hope, and aspirations. They are what we trained them to be in 
more ways than one. Politically, they are "bone of our bone 
and flesh of our flesh." When a Negro is capable of voting 
intelligently according to law, he should be permitted to vote 
just as any other citizen and no one should be permitted to 
hinder or try to buy him. As long as the white people allow 
such things to be carried on, so long will we have corrupt politics, 
and so long will the Negro be hindered in gaining his full manhood. 

In the North to-day, we find that Negroes are being thrown 
out of office and white men put in their places. And this 
movement is not merely local, but has extended to the Federal 
Government. Mr. M. R. Smith — a white man — was appointed 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 89 

as minister to the colored Republic of Hayti. The Negroes had 
held this office so long that they considered it theirs. Then a 
colored Democrat failed to go through as Register of the Treasury. 
The North American of June 9, 1916, told of President Wilson 
sending to the Senate the nomination of John F. Castello as 
Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia. This office 
had been held by Negroes for twenty years. Mr. Baker says 
that the Negroes are worried over the changing attitude of the 
Federal Government. "The movement to segregate Negro 
workmen in the department at Washington and the failure of 
the Democratic Administration to reappoint most of the Negroes 
who occupied important Federal positions have been regarded 
as a body blow at their aspirations. The pressure in the last 
Congress for discriminatory legislation, including bills for pre- 
venting Negro immigrants, for forcing segregation in the street 
cars in the District of Columbia and the threat to cut off entirely 
the appropriation of Howard University, one of their best 
educational institutions, have all added to their fear and dis- 
trust." 

In Congress, April 30, 1916, they had a great discussion over 
the Negro question. One thing, at least, is interesting in their 
speeches. L. M. Shaw, former Republican Governor of Iowa, 
and Secretary of the Treasury under Roosevelt, said: "If I had 
my way, the Republican party would put in its platform a 
plank like this: 'we believe in equal rights, equal opportunities 
under the law, but in the selection of officers, conditions being as 
they are, we deem it the part of wisdom to select from that race 
which for all time has been and for all time must be the governing 
race. ' Such a plank would break the 'Solid South'. "" 

I believe the white people in the North and West are as much 
opposed to Negro office holders as the South. As to what the 
tendency to eliminate Negro office holders will bring forth can 
hardly be more than a guess. At least we may say the Negro is 
losing out as a political unit in the North and West, and also 
in the Federal Government. Recently there has been some 
discussion regarding the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. 
Some advocate their repeal. They seem to be valueless to-day. 
When a State seeks to evade them she finds a way of doing so, 

2'* Raleigh Neivs and Observer, May 1, 1910. 



90 Race Relationship in Border and Northern Stotes 

and gains what she desires regardless of these amendments. 
Civil Rights Bills and Federal Amendments are no more than 
scraps of paper when either South, North or West wishes to 
mistreat the Negro. 

I do not think the South is as opposed to Negro officers now as 
she used to be. Gilford Troup, a Negro of Lawrence county, 
Alabama, has for the past twenty-four years been a justice of the 
peace. For the past fourteen years he has been elected by the 
white voters of the district. Can we imagine such a thing taking 
place immediately after the Civil War? I think the white South 
is becoming willing that Negroes should have certain offices as 
they show themselves capable. 

In all the States, courts are free. The Negro can sit where he 
pleases. There is, however, a custom in some places which 
separates the two races, the white people sitting on one side and 
the colored people on the other. This is quite common in the 
South, but quite often there is no distinction made. 

There are a number of counties both North and South where 
Negroes do not serve on the jury. I find that they do serve in 
many places in the South, and their number is increasing. The 
white men have power to keep any Negro off the jury if they so 
desire, but as the Negro increases in intelligence and wealth, 
more and more he is permitted to serve as juror. 

I find very few complaints of recent years coming from Negroes 
that they are treated unjustly by the courts. They are tried in a 
court where the judge is a white man, the jury is composed of 
white men, or a majority of its members are white men, and 
usually defended by a white lawyer, yet they seem to be getting 
justice. Surely this speaks well for our courts. 



CHAPTER VI 



SEX RELATIONSHIP AND CRIME 

One could scarcely deal with sex relationship and crime with- 
out mentioning social equality. Indeed, this aspect of the 
question runs through all of our discussions on race problems. 
Social equality is the torrid zone of our discussions on race 
problems. Whatever the vague yet comprehensive term "social 
equality" may embrace, it is the bugaboo of the South and is 
becoming so in the North. To-day it is the shibboleth which 
divides the races asunder. It is the slogan, which hke a savage 
warwhoop, arouses the deepest venom of the race which after all 
slumbers only skin deep under a thin veneer of civilization. 

The South has always had a grave fear of anything which she 
considered leading to social equality solely because she thinks it 
leads to interracial sex relationship and interracial marriage. 
Were it not for this belief she would care little about social 
equality. In the minds of most Southern people, and a surpris- 
ingly large number of Northern people, this is what social equality 
means. Only recently has this idea gotten hold of the minds of 
the Northern people to any appreciable extent. President 
Elliot of Harvard University has told us that the white man 
of the North is not less averse than his Southern brother to the 
social minghng of the races. It has been more apparent in the 
South because there has always been more Negroes, but now 
it is becoming apparent in the North as the Negro population in- 
creases. 

The North has gone on the assumption that the two races 
would not "mix" or marry. The South has worked on the 
assumption that they would mix and marry if not prevented. 
What has really happened is that the South has had more social 
equality than the North but she did not know it. She has always 
had more sexual relationship, especially prior to and immediately 
after the Civil War. The North, up to a few years ago, made 
a great display of her associations with the Negro. Some wealthy 
man would give a dinner or dance and invite one or two of the 

91 



92 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

best Negroes. The newspapers would report this and add 
condemning words concerning the South. But such occasions 
as these seem to be almost unknown in the North to-day. The 
Southern white and Negro women have more social equality 
around the wash-tub than the Negro gets out of a Negro-white 
"blowout" in the North, to say nothing of the numerous other 
social contracts of the tAVO races. The difference is a different 
label. 

1. The constitutions of six States: Alabama, Florida, Missis- 
sippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee, prohibit 
Negro-white intermarriage. Twenty-three other States now have 
laws prohibiting Negro-white intermarriage. They are : Arizona, 
Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, 
Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, 
Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Oregon, South 
Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia. In the other 
States there are no laws against interracial marriage. In the 
year of 1913 bills were introduced in ten of these States but were 
defeated, largely through the influence of the National Associa- 
tion for the Advancement of Colored People. These ten States 
were: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, New York, 
Minnesota, Illinois, Kansas, and Washington. One can see by 
this that some of the Northern States have legislated against the 
Negro, and in other States there is a strong sentiment for such 
legislation. The New England States, New Jersey, Wyoming, and 
New Mexico have not tried in recent years to pass any laws 
against Negro-white intermarriage. Massachusetts and prob- 
ably some of the other States had a law prohibiting Negro- 
white intermarriage several years before the Civil War. 

Louisiana not only has a law against Negro-white intermarriage 
but also a law against concubinage. South Carolina and Nevada 
have laws against Negro-white cohabitation. 

Nebraska passed her law against Negro-white intermarriage 
in 1913. The cause for passing this law seems to be as follows: 
On Easter night, 1913, a terrific storm swept over Omaha and 
destroyed about everything which the Negroes possessed. The 
Negroes immediately sent for their relatives and friends. The 
result was the gathering of hundreds of Southern Negroes in 
Omaha. The Negroes from the other towns saw how well the 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 93 

Negroes in Omaha were being treated so they decided to take up 
then- abode there. This gave Omaha a considerable Negro 
population. It is said that "they took possession of the city." 
The result was the law against Negro-white intermarriage. 

The Johnson-Jeffries fight at Reno, Nevada, July 4, 1910, 
caused a number of race riots in the South. It also caused 
considerable race feeling all over the United States, especially in 
some of the Western States. Five of these States have passed the 
anti-Negro-white marriage laws since that fight. It probably 
had something to do with the passage of these laws. 

One does not go far into the study of the Negro-white race 
problem until he finds himself face to face with the curious and 
seemingly absurd question: What is a Negro? To the popular 
mind any one is a Negro who has any Negro blood in his veins. 
We often see people who could pass for white anywhere, yet they 
are classed as Negroes. Then again we see people who undoubt- 
edly have Negro blood in their veins passing for white. We are 
satisfied to let any one who has Negro blood in his veins pass for 
a Negro, but we are not willing for one who has a drop of 
Negro blood in his veins to pass for white if we know it. South- 
ern white people pride themselves on being able to distinguish 
any Negro blood in any one, but nevertheless, they sometimes 
make mistakes. More than one man has had to pay the penalty 
for making this mistake. A few years ago a new principal came 
to the writer's home to take charge of the high scliool. Not 
long afterwards he met two girls on the street. He stopped them 
and asked why they did not come to school. One replied: "We 
goes to de colored school." He went on down the street some- 
what mortified, nevertheless he enjoyed the joke. On several 
occasions I have mistaken mulattoes for white people. One 
night in Louisville, Kentucky, I attended a large gathering of 
Negroes, at which Dr. Du Bois was the speaker. As I sat there 
looking out over the large audience I said to one sitting by me, 
this may be a congregation of Negroes but it looks to me that 
half of them are white people. On another occasion I was in a 
large Negro church in Kentucky. I asked a cultured Negro 
sitting by my side if many white people came to church here. 
He said that quite a number attended church there, some regularly 
because it was quite a distance to a white church of that denom- 



94 Race Relationship in Border and Northern S ales 

illation — Methodist. I asked if any white people were members 
of that church. He said that they were not members. Then, 
I asked, why that white man was giving out song-books. He an- 
swered that he was not a white man. I repUed that while he 
might not pass as a white man he could if he wished to do so any- 
Avhere, for he had not ten drops of Negro blood in him. 

The law must draw the line somewhere to avoid endless con- 
fusion. The laws of most of the States state what they consider 
a Negro, but some are very indefinite. Some simply say 
"Negro," others say "Negro or mulatto," "Any person of 
African descent," "Negro to the third generation." Eleven 
declare them Negroes as long as they have one-eighth Negro 
blood. In Alabama a Negro is a Negro forever. In some of the 
States a Negro breeds "white" in the fourth generation if one 
ancestor in each generation is a white person. But many of these 
statements give us as unsatisfactory an answer as could have 
been given to Hugh Kelly, wiio asked: "My father's father was 
a Black Hawk Indian, seven feet tall. My father's mother was 
an Irish-woman. My mother's father was an American white 
man. Her mother was a full-blooded African woman. What 
am I?" 

In the States which have no laws against Negro-white inter- 
marriage, very few mixed marriages occur. They have rapidly 
decreased for the last few years. Boston in 1905 had over 12,000 
Negroes, yet she had only 19 mixed marriages, sixteen less than 
in 1900. It seems strange that they should decline so rapidly in 
Boston — the city that has always been so liberal toward the 
Negro. In practically all the Northern cities the Negro popula- 
tion has increased at a remarkable rate, but the marriages 
between the races have decreased very rapidly. The Negro- 
white intermarriage is usually consummated by a Negro man 
marrying a white woman; the reverse is seldom the phenomenon. 
The white women who marry Negroes- are generally ignorant 
foreigners, and are socially ostracized, for generally speaking, 
neither race will have much to do with the couple. 

I believe the chief reason why the mixed marriages are decreas- 
ing in the Northern cities is that there is an increasing Negro 
population, composed chiefly of recent immigrants from the 
South. These are generally of the lower class of Negroes, a 



Race Relatio7iship in Border and Northern Slates 95 

lower class than those brought up in the North. These have 
awakened the slumbering race prejudice that remains thinly 
veiled in all Caucasians. The low class of Negroes will often 
marry a white woman, l)ut I do not believe the better class of 
Negroes want amalgamation, miscegenation, or to be Caucasian- 
ized. I have asked a number of them but I never received an 
affirmative answer. One of my university class-mates replied 
to the question: "Such as I could get, I would not have, and 
such as I would have, I cannot get. " I do not think the Negroes 
oppose the laws against Negro-white intermarriage because they 
want intermarriage to take place, but rather because it leaves 
the Negro girl with less protection than a brute. If the Negro 
girl is impregnated by a white man, her child, under the law, 
is declared a bastard and she has no chance of gaining redress. 
The Avhitc man sows the whirlwind and looks for no crop. He 
certainly does not receive any according to law. The trouble 
with the laws is that they lead to concubinage, bastardy, and the 
degradation of the Negro women. They leave the Negro girl 
helpless before the lust of the white man. She is already almost 
helpless before the lust of the Negro ''buck," and if she is left 
helpless before the white man also, what is to become of her? 
How can the Negro race improve without protection to their 
girls ? These Negro girls need protection just as much as the 
white girls, and they need far more training in morality. I do 
not think any one should advocate intermarriage between any 
races, certainly not between African and Caucasian. And 
certainly illegal cohabitation should be branded as infamous b}^ 
all races. What I do think we need is less law and mo're dis- 
tinctive education of the two races, especially the lower classes 
of the races. The laws were intended to stop the infusion of 
white blood with black. But in this they certainly have not 
accomplished what they were designed to do, and if this is all 
they were expected to do they are worthless. 

2. No one phase of the race question has aroused more 
acrimonious discussion than that of the mulatto. The increase 
of mulattoes, their fertility, physical strength, intelligence, etc., 
have all been potent points in the discussions. 

Mulattoes come about in two ways: first, through the mating 
of mulattoes with mulattoes or blacks; second, through the 



96 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

mating of whites with niulattoes or blacks. There is a mistaken 
idea on the part of many people in thinking that all Negroes 
brought here from Africa were black. There is a large belt 
across central Africa in which the Negroes from the earliest 
records were mulattoes. There is no doubt that many of these 
were brought here and sold along with the blacks. 

Before the Civil War many white men became the fathers of 
mulattoes. Some of these men were or later became governors, 
senators, congressmen — the best blood of the South. These 
mulattoes usually were treated much better and received better 
instruction than the black slaves. They were the masters' 
sons and daughters, so were used as house servants and were not 
put out in the fields at hard labor. Often they were set free 
at their masters' death. After the Civil War many well-to-do 
white men had their black families as well as their white families. 
The black families were usually well cared for. This system of 
concubinage was a common thing for many years after the war, 
and is not unknown in the South to-day. There is, however, a 
strong sentiment developing through the South against this 
practice. Leagues among both whites and blacks are being 
formed in many places to try to stop the mixing of the races, 
and preachers and other public men are speaking in no unmis- 
takable terms against it. I shall never forget the look of despair 
on a Negro minister's face, as we were talking of the mulatto 
problem, when he said : "For God 's sake do something to stop it. 
It lies in the hands of you young Southern white men to create 
such a sentiment against it that it will be stopped. Unless you 
do the Negro race is ruined." Laws cannot stop it. I think, 
however, if the social forces are allowed to take their course, that 
with development, the practice will pass away naturally. 

According to the census report there were 2,050,686 mulattoes 
in the United States in 1910. In 1890 there were 1,132,060. I 
am aware that these figures cannot be relied upon to be absolutely 
accurate for there are many Negroes who have Indian, Chinese, 
Japanese, etc., blood in their veins and are classed as mulattoes. 
Then there are many Negroes who have white blood in their 
veins but do not show it, so are classed as black. Then there 
are some mulattoes who have "gone over to the whites." The 
latter class often change their names and say they are Mexican, 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 97 

Armenian, Italian, Brazilian, etc. I feel that these figures, 
though large, are not sufficient to give us much alarm of race 
amalgamation. The ante-bellum and post-bellum practice of 
concubinage doubtless accounts for thousands of our mulattoes 
to-day. A glance at table VIII shows that the percentage of 
mulattoes between 1890 and 1900 decreased in twenty-five States. 
I agree with Mr. McCord, who says: 

"The fact that sexual relations between the races is becoming 
more and more confined to dissolute white men and Negro 
prostitutes who, in common with all prostitutes, bear few children 
and rear fewer of them, is rapidly curtailing the infusion of white 
blood. The further fact, also, that children from such unions 
suffer from both vicious environment and degenerate heredity 
tends to make them less prolific, even if they reach maturity, and 
to eliminate them by early death, thus cutting off their future 
propagation. 

"I should say then, upon the whole, that inter-racial amal- 
gamation has taken place to an appreciable extent, but to no such 
extent as is claimed by many wTiters. Nor is the process going 
on to the same extent now as formerly except through mulatto 
parents. " 

The whites who usually cohabit with Negro women to-day arc 
generally white boys, usually under the age of twenty years, and 
old, broken-down, worn-out men, neither of whom are fit to 
beget children. This is quite different from before and for some 
years after the Civil War, when the best blood was infused into 
the Negro. The mulattoes from such unions could justly be 
proud of their ancestors and win distinction as many of them did. 
But the mulatto which results from the union of white and black 
to-day has quite a different ancestry. Considering this, it is 
marvelous that they are not more criminal than they really are. 
The crime of mulattoes is usually against property while that 
of blacks is generally against person. The influence of the white 
blood may have something to do with this. It is stated that 
mulattoes are not as prolific as whites or l)lacks and that they stop 
breeding by the fourth generation unless mixed back with pure 
stock; yet, I feel that most of the mulattoes of to-day arc the 
children of mulattoes. I think there arc fewer whites mixing 
with Negroes than formerly, and I think this same force is 



98 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

working between mulattocs and blacks. ''Quadroons, octoroons 
and pure mulattoes marry, but a flat-nosed, thick-lipped African 
must mate with his color and kind." 

There is a prevalent idea through the country that mulattoes 
are more intelligent than pure Negroes. This is doubtless true 
of the older generation of mulattoes, for as I have said they had 
much excellent white blood in their veins, and had better training, 
better environment, etc. Many leaders of the Negro race have 
been and are mulattoes, as, Du Bois, Washington, Douglass, 
Chestnut, Stanley, Tanner, Terrell, etc., but there are notable 
exceptions, as, Vernon, Miller, Dunbar, Price, and Mason. 
According to the records being kept at Hampton Institute, the 
black Negro of to-day is just as intelligent as the mulatto. 
About an equal number of pure Negroes and mulattoes have 
made advancement in their studies and at their work. The 
most intelligent Negro I think I ever heard talk was undoubtedly 
a pure Negro, of the Phi Beta Kappa honor of Harvard Univer- 
sity. 

As has been indicated, many mulattoes "cross the line" — 
become white. Many can pass for white and some do in order 
to escape race prejudice and to gain greater economic freedom. 
But there are many who could pass easily for white that choose 
to remain Negroes. Of course the Negro race never loses any 
of the Negro blood if the white people either North or South 
know it. They class them as Negroes socially, economically, 
etc., just as long as they know they have any Negro blood in 
their veins. The reason more do not pass as white is that they are 
afraid it will be discovered. They are afraid that some one who 
has known them before as Negroes will come into their town. 
The Negroes will not disclose their identity, but the whites will. 
Then they are afraid that if they marry there will be a child in 
the family with a darker hue, and thus their real identity will be 
discovered. They feel that they arc a deceiver and they often 
testify that they cannot endure living this sneaking life. They 
prefer to be Dr. Jekyll in Negro society rather than Mr. Hyde 
among the whites. So they voluntarily choose to be Negroes. 
Professor Du Bois could pass anywhere for an Italian professor, 
or a Parisian maitre d'escrime, yet he prefers to remain a Negro. 
Race prejudice does a bit of good here to the lower class of Negro 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 99 

by forcing the well educated, progressive mulatto and pure blood 
back into Negro society, and causes them to help solve the prob- 
lems of the Negro race. 

On the other hand, there is developing very definitely, in some 
places, a mulatto society which comes in between the whites and 
pure Negroes. Some social sets and some churches are composed 
entirely of mulattoes. There is a church in Philadelphia where 
the membership is composed almost entirely of mulattoes and it 
is generally understood that they do not want pure Negroes as 
members. 

3. I have chosen to treat crime, race riots and lynchings all 
together. Some very definite lines could be drawn between 
them, but for my purpose, I think it better to consider them all 
together without trying to draw any visible lines of demarcation. 

Before the Civil War the Negro race had no appreciable 
criminal record behind it in this country. In slavery it did not 
have an opportunity to commit many crimes successfully. But 
immediately after the Civil War was over this race started to 
make a criminal record that has grown, widened and intensified 
as the years have passed. Still I doubt if its criminal record is 
any more serious than that of any other primitive people in like 
surroundings. The Negro en masse is still a primitive people, 
and from this group comes the element that is making the 
criminal record. The defective family life and training is, I 
think, the chief cause of criminality among the Negroes just as it 
is among other peoples. Under the slavery regime the Negro 
had practically no family life, and since slavery many of them 
have failed to develop what would be classed as a real family 
life. The stringent economic conflict prevents many of them 
from having what may be termed a family life. They are hud- 
dled together in cabins ; the father and mother have to be away 
from home w^orking to support the family, and the children are 
left to grow up in unwholesome environments, surrounded by 
vice and cfime of all descriptions without any definite training 
to develop character. 

Under the slavery regime the Negro would steal things from 
his master. They belonged to his master as did he, and so he 
thought it made no difference for him to appropriate them to 
his own use if the master did not catch him. This seems to be a 



100 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

trait which the Negroes have never been able to overcome. 
Even to-day Southern people seem to expect about every Negro 
whom they employ to steal, and they are prone to excuse them 
on the ground that "darkies are darkies," so you need not expect 
any better of them. They are expected to steal part of the 
clothes which they wash and part of the food which they cook, 
to say nothing of robbing the hen-roost. Yet Southern people 
kindly wink at these small thievings which are liable to develop 
into atrocious crimes later. If all of the Southern people would 
do as most of the Northern people do, demand that the Negroes 
whom they employ shall be truthful, honest, and moral, and not 
employ them unless they maintain that standard, I think the 
criminal record of the next generation would be considerably 
diminished. As it is, it is rapidly increasing and the white people 
are partly to be blamed for it. 

As to what is to become of the Negro race unless they conquer 
their criminal tendencies, it is hard to say. The leaders of the 
Negro race are putting up a strong fight to check their criminal 
record. Just now the physical continuance of the Negro race 
is threatened by its criminal and moral status. Du Bois says: 
"The Negro Academy ought to sound a note of warning that 
would echo in every black cabin in the land. Unless we conquer 
our present vices, they will conquer us. We are diseased. We 
are developing criminal tendencies, and an alarmingly large per- 
centage of our men and women are sexually impure. " 

The criminal record of the Negro shows a steady increase. It 
shows a higher increase in the North than in the South. This is 
due partly to the mobile element which shifts to places of greatest 
attraction. They leave what little home life they have in the 
rural districts of the South and go to the Northern cities where 
there is less restraint and greater opportunity for crime. But 
this does away with the Northern idea that the Negro is more 
criminal in the South, and that it is caused by Southern courts 
dealing unjustly with them. In 1904 there were 7,527 Negroes 
in Northern prisons and 18,550 in Southern. In 1910 there were 
10,081 Negroes in Northern prisons and 28,620 in Southern. In 
1904 there were 50,111 whites in prisons and 72,797 in 1910. In 
1904 the number of prisoners per 100,000 of the population was 
for whites, 75; for Negroes, 277. In 1910 the number for whites 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 101 

was 89; for Negroes 375. In 1904 the rate of Negro prisoners 
per 100,000 Negro population was 705 for the Northern States 
and 220 for the Southern States. In 1910 it was 732 in the 
Northern States and 323 in the Southern States. 

It is interesting to note that the Negro has a relatively lower 
percentage of crime than the immigrant races which are coming 
to our shores. The commitments to prison in 1904 per 1,000 of 
certain nationalities were: Mexican, 4.7; Italian, 4.4; Austrian, 
3.6; French, 3.4; Canadian, 3.0; Russian, 2.8; Poles, 2.7; Negro, 
2.7. For the same year those committed for rape per 100,000 of 
the total population were: All white, 0.6; Negro, 1.8; Italian, 
5.3; Mexican, 4.8; Austrian, 3.2; Hungarian, 2.0; French, 1.9; 
Russian, 1.9 

Riots and lynchings used to be classed as peculiar to the South. 
This was especially true for several years after the Civil War. 
But as early as 1712 New York hanged and burnt slaves and left 
some in chains to starve to death. And in 1741 the city of 
New York burnt fourteen Negroes and hanged twenty-one. 

Many Northern writers and a few Europeans have criticized 
the South very severely for her methods of deahng with the Negro. 
Some of the Northern writers claim that the Southern people do 
not understand the Negroes and do not treat them as they should, 
that if they did they would have no trouble with the Negroes. 
I grant that often the Negro receives unjust treatment in the 
South, and I am not one to defend one thing that has been done 
which I think unjust. But is the South the only place where the 
Negro is treated unjustly? Is the South the only place where 
the whites have trouble with the Negroes? It is unnecessary 
to mention in any detail whatever the different cases of lynchings, 
riots, and murders of Negroes that have occurred in the North, 
because any one that is familiar with conditions in the United 
States for the last five years knows that there has been much more 
trouble between the white and colored people in the North than 
there has been in the South. While I cannot get an accurate 
record of all the lynchings, riots, and murders that have occurred 
in the United States, I am firmly convinced that, if it were cal- 
culated on the basis of Negro population, we would find that there 
have been more Negroes lynched, more murders of Negroes, and 
more riots in the North than in the South according to the 



102 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

pcrcontage of Negro population in the two sections of the country. 
Riots to-day seem to be about twenty-five times as common in 
the North as in the South. The North goes after the whole race 
while the South goes after the individual Negro criminal. The 
South has nothing to compare with the occurrences of East St. 
Louis and Chicago. The riot at East St. Louis bears the dis- 
tinction of being the most murderous massacre of colored 
Americans that ever occurred in our country's history. 

What shall we say of lynchings? When white men who are 
supposed to be living in the crux of civilization revert to primor- 
dial savagery, what may we expect of the Negro? Lynching in 
this country is peculiarly the white man's burden. The white 
people have taken all responsibility of government into their 
hands. All the machinery of justice is in their hands, yet 
lynchings are allowed to occur. Mobs are symptoms of political 
rottenness, and a government does not exist for its own sake. Its 
only reason d'etre being its utility as an agent for the advance- 
ment of the common welfare and the promotion of individual 
prosperity and happiness. Yet the government allows mobs of 
white citizens to lynch, murder, shoot, and burn its black 
citizens and go free! The government would not allow horses 
to be burnt in such a cruel and horrible manner as it permits 
some of its black citizens to be. 

The white man who joins a mob puts himself, by his very acts, 
on a level with the Negro criminal. If our civilization does mean 
self-control and self-restraint it means nothing. If the white 
man casts away self-control and self-restraint he is already as 
savage as the Negro who commits the most dastardly crime. 
It is commonly said that a criminal father is a poor preacher of 
homilies to a wayward son. Yet this is what is going on. The 
white man sets the example of non-obedience to law, of non- 
enforcement of law, and unequal justice. What then can we 
expect of the Negro? Does lynching help make the Negro 
obedient to law? No. How could it? Lynching serves to 
stir up animosity between the two races. The Negro lives 
according to the standard the whites in his community set for 
him. If the white people in a community are law-abiding the 
Negroes usually are. The Negro sees white men committing 
murder over and over again in all these lynchings and yet go free. 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 103 

Why should he fear to murder? And how should he regard the 
law? Few words in the English language are too strong to 
condemn a mob like the one at Springfield which lynched an 
octogenarian Negro just for the sake of killing — the blood lust. 
Then there is the mob at East St. Louis which burnt 310 Negro 
homes, covering sixteen and one half acres, where white women 
beat down innocent Negro women and stripped their clothing 
from them, white men shot helpless Negroes, and white men 
picked up Negro children and threw them into burning buildings. 
But we must confess that our civilization is diseased and many 
of our cities, "though covered with a forest of church towers are 
as corrupt as Nineveh and Tyre." 

The horrible burnings and frightful tortures which, in the last 
few years, have accompanied the lynching of Negroes, can partly 
be accounted for by the fact that a lower class of white people 
now do the lynching than formerly. Then newspapers publish 
in detail, accounts of the lynchings. This power of suggestion 
has great influence on these barbarous mobs of poor, ignorant 
whites. They think the more barbarous they make these 
lynchings the more quickly crimes will be stopped, but often it 
has the opposite effect. It has been recorded that a Negro who 
had witnessed a lynching for rape actually committed an assault 
on his way home. That there has been and is governmental 
inefficiency in deahng with mob violence is quite evident. Our 
laws as formulated and administered have proven inadequate to 
deal with the situation, and they should either be administered 
or repealed. But if we had a few more men like the Governor 
of Kentucky, who offered to uphold the law and defend the 
court with his own body if necessary, when a mob was trying to 
lynch a Negro, lynching would soon be a thing of the past. 

Lynch-law reached its climax in the late eighties and early 
nineties. From 1885 to 1915, 3,733 people were lynched in the 
United States, 2,735 of these being Negroes. In 1915, 54 negroes 
were lynched; 1916, 50; and 1917, 36. Georgia seems to be, by 
far, the bloodiest, most lawless State in the Union. She lynched 
eighteen in 1915, and fourteen in 1916; more than one-fourth 
of the lynching of these two years occurred within her borders. 
Lynchings occurred in the following States in 1917: Alabama, 
4; Arkansas, 4; Arizona, 1; Florida, 1; Georgia, 6; Kentucky, 



104 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

2; Louisiana, 5; Mississippi, 1; Montana, 1; Oklahoma, 1; 
South Carohna, 1; Tennessee, 3; Texas, 6; Virginia, 1; Wyoming, 
1. The number of lynchings was reduced from 171 in 1886-1895 
to 70 in 1906-1915. Lynching in the United States seems to be 
rapidly declining, and let us hope it shall soon be a thing of the 
past. 

From the preceding reports it seems that the Northern States 
are having real experience with lynchings and race riots. Race 
riots are becoming very common in practically all the large 
Northern cities. And there is no little ground for apprehension 
in the fact that it is more common to hear the cries of ''Lynch 
him, " " Get a rope and string him up, " in the streets of New York 
City than it is in any city in the South. The increased migration 
of Southern Negroes into the North doubtless accounts for much 
of it. With this migration goes many of the mobile Negro ele- 
ment which shifts from place to place according to temporary 
attraction. This element has little regard for the best interest 
of either race. They leave a criminal record wherever they go 
and care little for the results. Incarcerations only serve to 
intensify their animosity. Their criminal record in the North 
has been responsible in a marked degree for the changing senti- 
ment of the Northern white people toward the Negro race. 

According to statistics some Northern cities show a notable sur- 
plus of Negro women over men. While it is a question whether 
the Negroes can ever become a large factor in the population 
in Northern latitudes as they are not holding their own in the 
country or small towns, and in large cities only by constant 
migration and not by birth rate, yet the predominance of the 
female element has a very bad effect on their home life and 
society in the urban Negro population. In 1910 there were only 
889 males to every 1000 females among the Negro population in 
the United States, while there were 1060 males to every 1,000 
females among the white populaton. Where either sex pre- 
ponderates, in large numbers, there is much immorality because 
the other sex is cheap. In the Northern cities the Negro women 
preponderate in large numbers, so it is a very common thing to 
see a Negro woman "waltzing" down the street with her para- 
mour. Many Negro men are supported in idleness by Negro 
women in order to have them as paramours. This brings 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 105 

defective family life, and the children deserve much credit if 
they do not become criminals. The women of any race are the 
conservators of its moral stamina, which in turn lies back of all 
social progress. But if these women live debauched lives, and 
support their paramours, living under the stress and strain of 
the economic conflict in the North, where over half of them are 
forced to earn their living in domestic service and that at low 
wages, what may we expect of the children? 

The increasing criminal record of the Negro is a serious ques- 
tion. A few years ago the Northern newspapers did not say 
much about the crimes of Negroes, but now almost all the North- 
ern newspapers publish the crimes of Negroes in glowing headlines. 
And they are not very particular about the phraseology they 
use in their discussions of the crimes of Negroes. This seems 
to have given many of the Northern whites a disgust for the de- 
tested race. They now blame the whole race for the crimes of 
few, and have withdrawn their friendship for the Negro and 
want nothing to do with him. When he comes to court he must 
suffer the consequences. No one will take his case without 
money. He has no white friend to intercede for him, and the 
courts are generally not willing to liberalize in his case. 

On the other hand, in the South, there has always been a kind 
of affection between the two races because of the close associa- 
tions in slavery and since, which influence continues to hold to- 
day. The Negroes show great affection for the whites and 
practically every Negro in the South has some white friend to 
whom he can go for aid. When the Negro commits a crime and 
gets in jail in the South, he sends for his "white folks," if he is 
fortunate enough to have any, and he generally is. And they 
come, men or women, as the case may be, practically without 
fail. His "white folks" have great power in court and often 
they are responsible for the Negro getting less than justice. 
The court, often through the influence of his white friends, lets 
him go with a reprimand or a small fine when the law would call 
for something more severe. 

If the Negro has no "white folks" he may have much trouble 
before the court gets through with him, but even then some one 
may take pity on him and get a lawyer to defend him, or the 
judge may appoint some lawyer to defend him. Mr. Champ 



106 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

Clark says: "Some of the hardest fights that I have ever made 
in court have been by appointment of a judge, generally to 
defend some poor, friendless Negroes, and I made just as hard a 
fight as I would have made for the President of the United States, 
or the Governor of Missouri, or anybody else, and I would do it 
again. " 



CHAPTER VII 



RELIGIOUS RELATIONSHIP 

In another chapter I have said something about the Negro 
minister as a professional man. The Negro preacher before and 
after the Civil War was poorly equipped for the high and sacred 
office of the ministry. Even to-day many of them remain with 
the poorly equipped class, but many of them are very well equip- 
ped to perform their duties. The intellectual class of Negro 
preachers, who are well trained to lead their people, have an 
exceedingly hard task before them. Usually their congregations 
are uneducated and take very little interest in the sermons of the 
educated minister. Unless they can preach a lot of magical, 
mysterious, hell-fire and damnation kind of reUgion and preach 
in the "sing-song" method they are liable to have to change 
pulpits quite often. 

The Negro church is the only institution which the Negro may 
justly call his own. It is a fact that he copied his religion largely 
after his white masters, and it is a fact that some Negro churches 
still remain under the white man 's control, but most of them are 
not controlled by white men and white men have little or nothing 
to do with them. In all his other institutions he has to come in 
contact with the white man, but in the church he can preach 
whatever he wishes so long as it is acceptable with his congrega- 
tion. And his congregation can roll on the floor all night, get 
just as much religion as they want, shout until their clothes fall 
off if they wish, and the white people have nothing to do with it. 
The Negro preacher often does not care what his parishioners 
believe, sometimes what they do, but there is one thing which he 
is vitally interested in and that is the financial side of his church 
He often has the collection plate passed several times in the 
course of one service. I have often seen the collection plate 
passed three times in one service, and if there are many white 
people in the congregation it is sometimes passed more often. 
The life of the Negro preacher is often an unfit example for his 

107 



108 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

congregation. Many Negro preachers are dishonest, immoral 
and sexually impure. It is unfortunately true that there is a 
wide discrepancy between creed and conduct, not only among 
the church members, but the ministers as well. Negroes are 
widely known for their church going proclivities and their 
emotional and spiritual susceptibilities, and often they permit 
their emotions to take the place of their spiritual nature, or 
rather carry it to extremes. They also quite often permit their 
sexual passions to overcome their emotions. This takes place to 
such an extent that it must be confessed that ungodliness is 
triumphant when their "temples of worship are turned into 
debauching rendezvous, with prayer-meetings transformed into 
seances of sensous contortions and physical frenzies." Negroes 
practice such an infinitesimal amount of the religion they shout 
that many Southern whites have little confidence in their religion. 
Rev. Dr. Tucker, at the American Church Congress, said: "I 
have known Negroes to steal from each other in the midst of 
prayer-meeting, and rob the hen roost on the way home.''^" 
Mehck says: ''I have heard Negroes trying to persuade others 
to accept religion, and a few minutes afterwards swear in the 
most vile terms imaginable. "^s Dr. Shufeldt says: "At South- 
ern Negro campmeetings unbridled lust is a common practice."" 
The time-honored dispute as to the proper mode of baptism is 
about the only Scriptural text which the Negro preacher ap- 
proaches with controversial heat. Ethical sermons have no 
place in his preaching, but he places much emphasis on the 
doctrine of hell and the amount of the collection plate. He likes 
to be seen masquerading in a prince albert, a white vest, and 
other garments of seeming righteousness. Praise evoked liy 
pulpit effusions brings him intense satisfaction. The title of the 
ministry has a peculiar fascination for him and to be called 
" Reverend " is a great joy. He will do almost anything to get a 
"D.D.," and the zenith of his life is reahzed when he becomes 
"President " of some Baptist body, or gains the title of "Bishop. " 
Not all Negro ministers, however, are in this class. I have met 
some who were cultured gentlemen of the highest type. And I 
feel that the Negro should not be criticized very severely for his 

2' Some Phases of the Negro Question, p. 46. 



Rax:e Relationship in Border and Northern States 109 

failures in religion while white people make it almost impossible 
for it to be otherwise. 

1. As I have indicated, the Negro was known to have 
churches of his own before the Civil War. After the Civil War 
Negroes immediately established churches of their own in the 
South, but in the North for many years they continued to wor- 
ship side by side with the whites. They had some Negro 
churches in the North, but some of them worshiped with the 
whites. But for some years a change has been taking place in 
the Northern churches. One would think the Christian Church 
is the last place to look for race prejudice, yet it is there and 
plenty of it. 

We are assured by several writers that it is only a few Catholic 
churches that Negroes and whites are found in anything like 
equal numbers worshiping side by side. They worship together 
in some Cathohc churches in Boston and so do they in New 
Orleans and Louisville. I attended a Negro Catholic church in 
Louisville and found two-thirds of the congregation white people. 
I asked if the whites were members of that church and was told 
that they were not members there but came to help out the 
Negroes. In Chicago, and in many other Northern cities, separ- 
ate Cathohc and Episcopal churches have been established for 
the Negroes, We may say that in all the cities of the North, 
and in the rural districts as well, it is seldom that one finds white 
people and Negroes forming the same congregation. 

I spent six years in the North and only once did I ever hear 
a minister mention that he or his congregation had anything to do 
with the Negro, or that there was such a thing as a Negro in the 
world. This one preached a sermon on the Negro as a request 
of a committee which had been established, chiefly by Negroes, 
to bring about a better understanding between the white and 
colored people two years after a riot. His sermon was delivered 
in a perfunctory manner with little knowledge of or interest in 
the subject on his own part or the part of his congregation. 
Commenting on the sermon one of the faithful members of the 
congregation said to me: "I went to hear the Gospel preached, 
not to hear about Negroes." However Baker^^ tells us that 

25 Follomng the Color Line, p. 122. 



110 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

Northern white city pastors used to sometimes have a spasm of 
conscience over the Negro situation and venture to offer their 
services. He relates two cases reported to him by Miss Bar- 
tholomew who conducts a social settlement in one of the worst 
slums in Philadelphia. While the slum is near several of the 
most aristocratic white churches, and Miss Bartholomew has 
been there for several years, only twice have white pastors ven- 
tured down from their churches to inquire into the conditions 
and offer their services. The first one was willing to do nothing 
but read the burial services in case of death in the Negro famihes. 
The other wanted to establish a Sunday School for the Negroes 
but he could not have it in his church because they would have 
to air all the cushions after the Negroes had been in the church. 

The Baptist denomination some years ago organized the 
General Baptist Convention of America. The first convention 
was held in St. Louis in 1905. The next meeting was to have 
been in Louisville in May, 1906, but the meeting was postponed but 
the executive committee assigning as the reason that they 
found difficulty in securing a church in which to meet. The 
whites were averse to having Negro members of the denomination 
assemble in the pews with them. Later it was arranged that the 
whites and Negroes should meet in the same edifice, but they 
were going to confine the Negroes to the use of the balcony. 
This the Negroes resented. 

I was told by a minister who attended the Baptist Convention 
which met in Denver, Colorado, that neither the white families 
nor the hotels would entertain the Negro delegates. 

A Negro concert went to Reading, Pennsylvania. The 
quartet sang in all the important whites churches of the city, 
but when it came to getting a place for them to spend the night, 
none of the white families and none of the hotels would entertain 
them. Finally the Y. M. C. A. had to fix up a back room for 
them where none of the whites would see them. 

Colorado is the only State in the Union that has undertaken to 
guarantee the Negro free and equal accommodations and 
privileges in churches by law. But in Colorado the Negroes 
have their own churches and the white people will not have them 
as members of their churches. 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 111 

On several occasions I have visited the Baptist Ministers' 
Conference in Philadelphia. Each time I saw some Negroes 
there. I asked some of the white ministers if they ever asked 
the Negroes to speak before the conference. They told me that 
they used to have them speak, but for a long time now they had 
not asked a Negro to speak because there seemed to be a feeling 
against their speaking. 

After President Roosevelt held the famous luncheon with Dr. 
Washington, the ministers of the Methodist churches of Phila- 
delphia and vicinity, at one of their meetings, commended the 
"courageous and broadminded act of our President, and we hail 
it with joy as an auspicious omen that the weight of the great 
office of the President of the United States is to be cast in the 
interest of equal rights of all our citizens before God under the 
law of the land." But in 1916 we find these same Methodist 
ministers with others of their denomination, in the conferences 
of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, having a great discussion over 
the Negro question. This time they had crossed the fence for 
they wanted some ruling in the conferences changed because they 
were afraid a Negro might become bishop over some white 
churches. 

While there have been for some time numerous Negro churches 
in Boston, many colored people Avere members of the white 
Episcopal churches. A few years ago this came to be a serious 
problem. Negroes formed about one-fourth of the congregation 
of the Church of the Ascension and the vicar refused any further 
Negro attendance at the Sunday School. Other Episcopal 
churches had the same problem. They believed it according to 
teachings of Christ to keep the Negroes, but the white people 
were drifting away from them, strangers avoided them, and the 
Negroes could not contribute very much toward keeping up the 
expensive churches. They then decided to establish mission 
churches in the Negro districts, expecting these to grow into 
colored churches, and for the colored members of the white 
churches to move to them. Things drifted along this way for 
some time, but about 1906 a crisis was reached in St. Peter's 
church in Cambridge. Some of the white parents began to 
object to their children being in Sunday School classes with 
Negroes and having Negro teachers. About this time a new 



112 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

rector came in and he separated the white and colored children 
in most of the classes, giving each, teachers of their own race. 
The Negroes were offended and raised a cry of ''Jim-crowism." 
A little later a Negro boy was sent away from the church and 
the Negroes were more indignant and remained away from 
church. A meeting was called and the assistant rector remarked 
that the white members would be glad if the Negroes would 
withdraw, this they did do a few months later. 

We may say the white churches have been pursuing a "penny- 
wise and a pound-foolish economy" toward the Negro. South- 
ern whites would seem to show a greater interest in the religious 
and intellectual development of the Negroes in Africa than in 
those at home. The Northern whites seem far more interested in 
the Negroes in the South and in Africa than those around their 
own doors. In 1911, the white Presbyterians gave about three 
cents per member to evangehze and educate the Negro in the 
South. The Methodist gave less than five cents, and the 
Baptist gave $15,000 annually. While there are some twenty- 
six different boards carrying on missionary work among the 
Negroes, I think they are doing far less than they should be 
doing. Many Negro churches need to be guided and assisted 
by the brotherly hand of the white man, and many Negro 
preachers, so-called, need to be instructed in the best methods 
of church work. The Negro preachers and churches are in 
vital need of sane evangelism. They need to be taught the 
relationship between creed and practice. They need to be 
impressed with the necessity of living clean hves, both spiritually 
and physically, inside and out. Mens sana in corpore sano is 
fundamental in the development of the Negro. I feel that there 
is entirely too wide a separation between the white and colored 
ministers as well as between the laymen. I beheve if the leaders 
of these two groups would discuss their mutual problems together 
both would be benefited and the religion of the Negro would be 
raised to a higher plane. 

There are some hopeful signs, however, of greater Christian 
fellowship between the two races in the South. The Southern 
Baptist Convention, in 1914, pledged $50,000 toward the estab- 
lishment of a Negro Baptist Theological Seminary at Memphis, 
Tennessee. This is Uttle more than one cent per member for 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 113 

every Baptist in the South. The Methodist Episcopal Church 
South has spent something Hke $23,000 for Negro education, 
church institute work and social settlement work the past year. 
The Presbyterians in the South are doing the best of any of the 
denominations. They have a paid secretary on Negro evangel- 
ism who gives his entire time to pushing this work. On the 
other hand, the question of a Negro bishop continues to agitate 
the Episcopal Church, and the disposition of their Negro member 
is a paramount question in the Methodist Church in the North. 

Then, white and colored ministers are beginning more and 
more to speak out their sentiments regarding race relationship 
in public meetings. This year the Negro Baptists held their 
jubilee, celebrating the 50 years of colored Baptist church work 
in North Carolina. The Negroes in the South have a custom of 
inviting white men to speak to them in such celebrations. In 
keeping with this custom Governor Bickett, Rev. Dr. John E. 
White of South Carolina and Rev. Dr. W. N. Johnson were the 
prominent white men asked to take part in this celebration. 
Dr. White made the principal address and made a race speech. 
In his address he bade the Negro count it not all tribulation that 
he had been reared near his slave master and in contact with a 
great religious body. Governor Bickett and Dr. Johnson spoke 
briefly following Dr. White's address. The governor was 
introduced as a big man willing to be just to the colored man. 
Dr. Johnson reminded the colored people that social separateness 
is the solvent for the race trouble — "I don't want to eat with 
you and I certainly don't want to sleep with you," he said, 
"but I do want to work with you and help you." The colored 
people applauded it as if there had never been any trouble going 
on in Washington. At the Southern Baptists Convention Avhich 
met this year in Atlanta, Georgia, the white people invited 
several colored Baptist to the platform. One of the Negroes was 
the Rev. Dr. P. J. Bryan, pastor of one of the largest colored 
churches in the South. Dr. Bryan said the Negroes are under 
obligation to the white people, while the white people owe much 
to the Negro. He declared that the Negroes regard the Southern 
white men as their best friends. "We are not disturbed by 
occasional outbreaks," he said, evidently having in mind 
the recent lynching in Vicksburg. "We have not lost our 



114 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

heads nor shall we do so. We do not hate any men of any 
color. As manly men we will not, and as Christian men we can- 
not. I can speak for my colored brethren when I say we do not 
aspire to social equality or race amalgamation. We will stay 
out of your parlors if you will stay out of our kitchens. All we 
ask is that you protect us as we protected your wives and little 
ones when they and we were left alone. " 

Preachers and other public men are now no longer afraid to 
denounce lynchings and other crimes against Negroes. At 
Henderson, Kentucky, Rev. Dr. Bulgin and 2,000 white men and 
women denounced the lynching of a Negro near Memphis, 
Tennessee, May, 1917. The lynching had just occurred and this 
body denounced it and adopted resolutions to that effect. A 
few days later at Princetown, Kentucky, Evangelist Burke 
Culpepper of Memphis, Tennessee, in a sermon before a large 
audience, denounced mob law and strongly condemned the same 
lynchers at Memphis. 

The mission schools for Negroes have probably done more for 
the uplift of the Negroes in the South than any other phase of the 
Christian work. Many of these mission schools have grown into 
colleges. The white religious denominations spend annually an 
average of about $1,150,000 for Negro education in the South. 
Of tliis amount, probably $300,000 or more is contributed by the 
Negroes themselves. From 1900 to 1910 it is probable that the 
white religious denominations spent for Negro development in 
the South, between ten and eleven millions of dollars. Religious 
education has worked wonders among the Negroes in the South. 
It develops strong manly and womanly characteristics and re- 
tards the progress of crime. The late Bishop Charles B. Gallo- 
way of the Methodist Church, said: "I believe it is perfectly 
safe to say that not a single case of criminal assault has ever been 
charged against a student of a mission school for Negroes founded 
and sustained by a great Christian denomination. This is no 
question for small politicians, but for broad patriotic statesmen. 
It is not for non-resident theorists, but for the clear-visioned 
humanitarians. All our dealings with these people should be in 
the spirit of the Man of Galilee. " 

The Baptist and Methodist denominations are about the only 
ones that have succeeded in reaping an abundant harvest of 



Race Relationshi]) in Border and Northern States 115 

Negro Christians. The Negro seems to prefer these denomina- 
tions, because they are freer and give a broad field to rehgious ex- 
pression. It is said that the Negro is the only natural Baptist and 
it seems to be true when one looks at the large number of mem- 
bers which this denomination has enrolled. Seventeen of the 
twenty-five Negro churches in Greater Boston and forty-two of the 
eighty-one in Louisville are Baptist churches. The Negroes say 
they have more liberty in that church. The different Methodist 
churches have also been able to enroll large numbers of Negroes. 
But these denominations as well as others have not put forth the 
effort that they should. They have let race prejudice enter in 
and mar their work and hinder it in many respects. It is my 
deliberate judgment that the Christian Church of the United 
States, in her dealing with the Negro, stands before the world 
convicted of a degree of prejudice, cowardice, and inhumanity 
for which no consideration of her great achievement in other 
fields can ever atone. 

The News and Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina, February 
20, 1906, quoted the Germantown, Pennsylvania, Guide as 
calling on the people to provide a cemetery where Negroes may 
be buried, saying that ''unless something is done, the bodies of 
the colored poor will be denied the right of decent burial or their 
disposition, of necessity, will be by means of the dissecting room 
of anatomical boards." 

In March, 1915, the United States Supreme Court dismissed, 
on the ground that the court was without jurisdiction, a suit 
brought up to it by a Negro of Chicago, to compel the Forest 
Home Cemetery of that city to permit him to bury his wife in 
that cemetery in a lot which he owned and in which his two 
children had been previously buried. Between the time of the 
burial of his two children and the death of his wife the controllers 
of the cemetery had passed rules excluding Negroes from burial 
in it. 

2. The Young Men's Christian Association has had to meet 
the color problem, and wc find it drawing the color line. In the 
Northern cities this color line is being drawn as tight as in any 
city in the South. 

A few years ago the white Y. M. C. A. in New Haven, Connect- 
icut, decided not to allow Negroes to attend it, so a separate 



IIG Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

building had to be provided for the Negroes. Some years ago 
the colored young men of the suburb of Cincinnati organized a 
Y. M. C. A. The white Y. M. C. A. objected to this and had 
the colored organization change its name to the Y. B. (oys) 
C. A. Not many years ago a movement was made to organize a 
separate Y. M. C. A. for the Negroes in Boston. 

I know of no Northern city where the Negroes can go into the 
Y. M. C. A. or Y. W. C. A. and share the benefits with the white 
people. But separate institutions have been estabUshed or are 
being established in every Northern city with a considerable 
Negro population. This would indicate that race prejudice is 
increasing in the North, and that there is an increased desire for 
separation, and this among the best people— the Christian people. 



CHAPTER VIII 



GENERAL SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 

In a certain important sense all racial problems are distinctly 
problems of racial distribution. And the adjustment of the 
white and Negro element in the population varies from place to 
place. The chief factor determining the variance of adjustment 
is not latitude nor longitude, but the proportion of Negroes in 
the population. The Negro population has been increasing in 
all the Northern cities very rapidly for the last few years. It 
has probably increased more rapidly for the last five years than 
ever before in our history. Before the World War it was esti- 
mated that something like one million Negroes lived in the North; 
it is now estimated that something like two million live there. 
If the estimates are true, about one million Negroes have 
migrated North since the World War broke out. The scarcity 
of labor in the North due to the War, and the destructive floods 
and ravages of the boll weevil in the South, are given as the 
principle causes of the wholesale exodus. 

When Negroes begin to increase in a Northern town or city 
race prejudice increases on a proportionate scale, and this in- 
crease in the Northern cities is calling forth far sharper expres- 
sions of race prejudice than was expected a few years ago. This 
will continue until social adjustment takes place. It may call 
forth "Jim Crow" cars, or segregation by law; the driving out of 
the Negroes in counties and towns, as has already taken place; 
or more complete separation in schools, as in Chicago; or some 
other method of expressing race prejudice. 

There is scarcely a State in the United States where legislative 
or judicial records do not reveal the actual existence of some 
racial distinctions. Of the twenty-nine States that prohibit 
Negro-white intermarriage, half of them are outside the South. 
Negroes on account of their race have been excluded, usually 
contrary to the State laws, from hotels in Massachusetts, New 
York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and 

117 



118 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

Iowa; from barbershops in Connecticut and Nebraska; from 
boot-black stands in New York; from pool-rooms in Mass- 
achusetts; from saloons in Ohio and Minnesota; from soda 
fountains in Illinois; from theatres in New York and Illinois; 
from skating-rinks in New York and Iowa; and the bodies of 
Negroes have been refused burial with those of white people in 
Pennsylvania and Illinois. I do not mean here that Negroes are 
always excluded from such places, but that instances of such 
exclusions are found in the records. 

Civil Rights for whites and Negroes in the North are the same 
technically, but actual discriminations are just as numerous as 
in any Southern States. In the North the Negro is urged to rise 
but he is bound in chains. He is kept out of the white man 's 
hotel, restaurant, theatre, soda fountains, civilization. He is 
ordered to segregate himself, urged to build up a little African 
civilization within our big civilization. Yet he is barred from 
the labor unions and is compelled to make his living by odd jobs, 
domestic service, working as janitor, waiter, servitor. He is 
given no opportunity in the economic conflict to gain the money 
with which to build up that civilization. In every city he is 
forced to live in the most undesirable section. 

The Negro is admitted occasionally to some places of public 
accommodation, but he understands that while there he must 
stand waiting with hat in hand, or enter some place fixed apart. 
Seldom either publicly or privately can he sit at the table with 
white people. If he attends the white man's church he is 
assigned a pew where he has plenty of elbow room, usually so 
much room that he feels uncomfortable. He understands that 
he has no cup at the communion table, no vote in the councils 
of the laity and no place in the Y. M. C. A. Sometimes he is 
permitted to be sexton, bell-ringer, or organ-blower. "In the 
theatre and the circus, the camp-meeting and the court-room, 
the hospital and the prison, the cemetery and the potter's field, 
his place is his alone, and is readily located. Whether he goes 
or stays, works or worships, plays or suffers, lives or dies, the 
lines are drawn sharply around and about him, and there is no 
transgressing them — from his side. " He has nothing resembling 
equality with the white man in social life or in industrial life. 

Whites and Negroes never have and do not to-day associate 



Race Relcttionship in Border and Northern States 119 

together as one people in public or in private. They never form 
a society anywhere, but remain a mere juxtaposition of separate 
units. Social equality in the North as well as in the South is a 
myth. It was not in the South that Du Bois was made to feel 
that he "was different from others," but in a school way up in 
the New England hills, when a white girl refused his card. It 
was not in the South that the author of The Autobiography of 
an Ex-Colored Men was told by his teacher to sit down with the 
Negroes, and thus crushed his pride for life, but in a school in the 
New England States. It was not in the South, but in Exeter, 
New Hampshire, that Booker T. Washington, Jr., left PhiUps 
Exeter suddenly because he felt that he was discriminated against 
on account of his color. No, the color hne is everywhere. It is in 
the churches. It is in society. It is in pohtics. It is in the 
economic conflict, and no race knows it better than the Negroes. 
There used to be a sentiment among Northern whites to wipe 
it out, but that day is past. The two races have never been 
able to live together on terms of absolute equality and whoever 
believes this will soon be reversed is a dreamer. "The Great 
Teacher never preached the flat equality of men, social or other- 
wise. He gave mankind a working principle by means of which, 
being so different, some white, some black, some yellow, some old, 
some young, some men, some women, some accomplished, some 
stupid— mankind could, after all, live together in harmony and 
develop itself to the utmost possibility. And that principle was 
the Golden Rule. It is the least sentimental, the most profound 
practical teaching known to men."^^ 

Can any one say the Negro has made no progress? No, we 
could as well say America has made no progress. Hardly a genera- 
tion has passed since the common sneer rang in American's ears: 
"Who roads an American book?" Genius has no age, country, 
or race; it belongs to mankind. Who cares to-day whether Sir 
Isaac Newton, or Watts or Fulton was white, red, brown, or 

black? 

In 1863 there were about five million persons of Negro descent 
in the United States. Of these, four million and more were just 
being released from slavery. Ninety per cent, were totally 

^ Folloioing the Color Line, p. 307. 



120 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

illiterate and only one adult in six was a nominal Christian. 
Their total wealth in this country was about $20,000,000. 
Ninety-five per cent, of them in the South were penniless and 
landless. 

In 1913, fifty years later, there were ten and a quarter million 
persons of Negro descent in the United States. In 1910 they 
owned nearly 20,000,000 acres of land. Their total property in 
1910 was estimated at $300,000,000. To-day it is said to be 
more than $800,000,000. In 1910 they had 5,192,535 bread- 
winners, 69,471 in personal service. Negro ownership of 
Southern lands increased one hundred and fifty per cent, between 
1900 and 1910. During the same period of time the value of 
their farm property increased 177 per cent.; domestic animals, 
107 per cent.; implements and machinery 98 per cent.; total land 
and buildings increased 293 per cent.; and their poultry, 35 per 
cent. Negroes have nearly 40,000 churches, edifices worth at 
least $75,000,000. They control over 4,000,000 members and 
raise themselves $7,500,000. They contribute over $200,000 
each year for home mission work, and over $100,000 to foreign 
mission work. They have 500 higher institutions of learning. 
Twenty millions are invested in these schools, and over $13,000,- 
000 is necessary for their upkeep. Between 1900 and 1910 
iliteracy among Negroes ten years old and older was reduced 
from 57.1 per cent, to 39.4 per cent. To-day 70 per cent, are said 
to be literate. Between 1900 and 1910 the death rate was 
decreased from 29.4 per cent, to 25.5 per cent. They raise $5,- 
000,000 a year by secret and beneficial societies and hold $6,000,- 
000 in real estate. They have 100 old folks' homes and orphan- 
ages, 30 hospitals, and 500 cemeteries, practically all supported 
by them. They have 22,000 small retail establishments, several 
large wholesale establishments, and 48 banks capitalized at 
about $1,600,000, which do an annual business of about $20,000,- 
000. 

No other emancipated people has ever made such great progress 
in such short time. The Russian serfs were emancipated in 1861. 
Fifty years later 14,000,000 of them had accumulated about 
$500,000,000 worth of property, or about $36 per capita, an 
average of $200 per family. And about 30 per cent, were able 
to read and write. Fifty years after the emancipation of the 



Hace 'Relaiionshi'p in Border and Northern States 121 

Negroes in the United States, it was found that they had accumu- 
lated over S700,000,000 worth of property, or about $70 per 
capita, an average of $350 per family, and 70 per cent, of them 
could read and write. 

Monsieur Jean Finot, the able French writer, contends that: 
"Dans un delai de cinquante ans, ils ont realist les progres qui ont 
necessity pour maints peuples blancs de cinq a six si^cles. De 
Jules Cesar et Tacite jusqu'd Charlemagne, done pendant huit 
siecles, I'Allemagne a r^aUse moins de progres que les N^gres 
americains dequis la guerre de Secession"^". 

The average Negro is far worse off in the North than in the 
South. In the North he is so completely shut out from the more 
advantageous industrial opportunities. He cannot join a trade 
union; he suffers more in competition; he cannot teach except in a 
few Negro schools. A few criminals cause the whole race to be 
looked down upon and despised. The white man will not work 
by his side, he is forced to take lower wages, white people will not 
patronize his store, he is more liable to insults, his children are 
discriminated against in school and pelted with stones on the way 
home, and when a public meeting is called he does not know 
whether to go or not. No wonder he sings: "Hard trials — 
Great tribulations. Hard trials — I'm gwine for to live with the 
Lord!" And: "Swing low, sweet chariot, comin' for to carry 
me home!" A few of the older Northern people have preserved 
something of the war-time sentiment for the Negro. Occasion- 
ally one meets a low-class politician, and some charity workers 
that are interested in the Negro; but the people one ordinarily 
meets do not know or care anything about the Negro and do not 
discuss him. They have changed radically from their war-time 
policies. In the South, on the other hand, every one has a vital 
and vigorous opinion regarding the Negro — just mention the 
question and the discussion follows. In the South it is a vital, 
live, every-day problem, but in the North it has been a dead 
issue until only recently when it has gained momentum due to re- 
cent migration. The North used to love the Negro as a race, but 
despised him as an individual. The South has always liked the 
Negro as an individual, but feared him as a race. The North 

3» Le Prejuge des Races, pp. 498-499 . . 



122 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

loved the Negro as a race because that race was at least 500 
miles away; it counted him a brother because some one else had 
to do the brothering. The South has always liked the individual 
Negro and will do almost anything for him, but she used to fear 
him because he held the balance of power. To-day the North 
is having to do part of the brothering and she is resenting it in no 
uncertain terms. To-day the South has little to fear from the 
Negro either politically or economically. Some days ago I read 
an article from a political leader of South Carolina advocating 
that they now permit the Negro to vote on equal terms with the 
white man and do away with any law or force that prohibits the 
Negro from voting on equal terms with the whites. 

In 1900 the Negroes formed 11.6 per cent, of the whole popu- 
lation in the United States, but in 1910 they formed only 10.7 
per cent., decreasing 0.9 per cent, in ten years. In the same 
period of time the foreign born whites in this country increased 
30.7 per cent. The native born whites increased 20.8 per cent. 
So it is obvious that the proportion of Negroes to whites would 
have decreased if there had been no immigration at all. The 
white leaders of the South have a knowledge of these facts 
brought out by the census of 1910, and have become convinced 
that they no longer need to live in dread of the rapid increase of 
the Negro race for the white race is increasing more rapidly. 

The Southern white people reahze that the old relationship, so 
often typified in the affection of the black mammy, is one that 
must pass. They also realize it is impossible to have no relation- 
ship, no responsibihty and no cooperation. They realize that the 
two races must stand or fall together. There can be no progress 
apart, but together. They realize that neither crime, nor filth, 
nor disease draws any color line, and the sin of the immoral will 
injure the health of the strong, the judgment of the intelligent 
and learned will be influenced by the prejudices of the ignorant, 
and the lawlessness of the criminal will make a criminal out of the 
law abiding citizen. They now realize that the Negro is a great 
economic help to the South. In 1863 a slave was worth about 
$500. A Negro 's economic value to the South is now over $2,500. 
Their total value as an asset to the South is said to be over ten 
billion dollars. The South now realizes she cannot get along 
without the Negroes. It is said that thousands of acres of 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 123 

fertile land in the South have remained uncultivated for the last 
five years because of the migration of Negroes, and that the 
migration cost the South millions of dollars. These things are 
all helping to bring about better relationship between the races 
in the South, but there are also other forces at work. 

The thing that is probably doing most to bring about better re- 
lationship between the two races in the South is the Southern So- 
ciological Congress, organized in 1911. Each year a large group 
of the leaders of both races gather together and discuss their mu- 
tual problems. In these meetings nothing is done or said to sug- 
gest segregation, but everything which is desirable to be achieved 
by separation is emphasized in harmony with the best social and 
Christian principles. Nothing is done or said to cause the Negro 
to feel that he is less of a man and less entitled to respect because 
of the fact that he is a Negro. At each session and at each 
meeting of the session white women and white men and Negro 
women and Negro men gather together and speak from the same 
platform, a thing unheard of a few years ago. They realize that 
in all things that are purely social, they can be as separate as the 
fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual 
progress. 

The Northern Border States seem to be the chief battling 
ground for race prejudice at present. One of the great surprises 
that I received when I began studying the race relationship in 
the Border States, was to find that the northern part of the 
Southern Border States has far less interest in the welfare of the 
Negro, is more antagonistic to his presence, and less willing to 
share work with him than the southern part of the same States. 
After an extended study of the race relationship I am convinced 
that there are far more opportunities for the Negro in the far 
Northern States than in the Northern Border States. He has 
opportunities there because there are few Negroes, but the 
moment new migrations begin, his condition becomes one of 
peril. I am equally sure that the North has (especially for the 
last few years) and is changing rapidly and becoming more 
hostile to the Negro every year. On the other hand the South 
is becoming more friendly to the Negro every year; it offers him 
greater opportunities, and is the best place for him in the United 
States. Both sections of country have changed their attitude 



124 Bace Relationship in Border and Northern States 

since the Civil War. Some fifty years ago the North freed the 
slaves in the South, but some fifty years later, I am wondering 
who is going to free the Negro industrial slaves of the North. 
The South, in all probability, will have to do it, and do it in a 
spirit of brotherly love rather than as formerly with powder and 
lead. "Thou shalt treat humanity" — it was Kant's great saying 
— "ever as an end, never as a means to thine own selfish end. " 

While the race problem is not solved by any means and will 
not be for many years to come, w^e have some great men working 
at its solution and we should be thankful indeed for the big- 
hearted, broad-minded Southern men who are working so hard 
to bring about better relationship. They are doing a great work. 
Voltaire tells us it is more difficult and more meritorious to wean 
men of their prejudice than it is to civilize the barbarian. The 
solution of the race problem, however, depends more upon the 
recognition of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of 
Man, and the application of the Golden Rule to the affairs of 
life than anything else. Jesus' law of brotherhood is universal 
in its working or it is no law at all. The Negro needs to learn the 
Ten Commandments and the white man the Golden Rule and 
how to apply them to their everyday relationship. Of course 
each community will have, in a measure, to adjust its own race 
problem. We can scarcely hasten the end of prejudice, only 
diminish it, but for the present, each race and each section should 
summon to its aid the virtue of patience and charity. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Adraans, J. H., Has a Negro the Right to Vote? 

Archer, Wm., Through Afro-America. 

Baker, R. S., Following the Colour Line. 

Blascoer, Frances, Colored School Children in New York. 

BowEN, Louis D., The Colored People of Chicago. 

Brandt, Lillian, The Negroes in St. Louis. 

Bracket, J. R., Notes on Progress of Colored People of Maryland. 

Brawley, B. G., A Short History of the American Negro. 

Brown, Wm. G., The New Politics. 

Brown, W. H., The Crucial Race Question. 

Cable, G. W., The Negro Question. 

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Cashin, H. v., Under Fire with the Tenth United States Cavalry. 

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Cook, J. F., Old Kentucky. 

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Cromwell, J. W., The Negro in American History. 

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Crossland, W. a., Industrial Conditions among Negroes in St. Louis. 

Cutler, J. E., Lynch Law. 

Daniels, John, In Freedom's Birthplace. 

Douglass, H. P., Christian Reconstruction in the South. 

DowD, Jerome, The Negro Race. 

Du Bois, W. E. B., The Souls of Black Folks. 

Du Bois, W. E. B., The Negro. 

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Early, Jubae, The Heritage of the South. 

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Epstein, Abraham, The Negro Migrant in Pittsburg. 

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Fleming, Wm. H., Slavery and the Race problem in the South. 

Freeman, Wm. A., The Devil Between the ^Vhite Man and the Negro. 

FiNOT, Jean, Le Prejuge des Races. 

Hammond, Mrs. Lilly, In Black and White. 

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Hartshorn, W. N., An Era of Progress and Promise. 

Haygood, a. G., Picas for Progress. 

Helm, Mary, From Darkness to Light. 

Helm, Mary, The Upward Path. 

HoLTzcLAW, W. H., The Black Man 's Burden. 

125 



126 Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 

Ingle, Edward, The Negro in the District of Columbia. 

Jones, C. C, The Religious Instruction of the Negro. 

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Kelsey, Carl, The Negro Farmer. 

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Murphy, E. G., The Basis of Ascendency. 

Morgan, T. J., The Negro in America. 

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Ovington, Mary W., Half a Man. 

Page, T. N., The Negro, the Southerner's Problem. 

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Quillin, F. U., The Color Line in Ohio. 

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Shufeldt, R. W., The Negro a Menace to American Civilization. 

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Wright, R. R. Jr., The Negro in Pennsylvania. 

Armstrong Association, Publications. 

Atlanta University Publications. 



RD 6 6, 



Race Relationship in Border and Northern States 127 

Census Reports of the United States, 1880, 1890, 1900, 1910. 

Charities. 

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Men and ReHgion, Messages. 

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Who's Who of the Colored Race? 1915-1916. 

I also used various other reports, periodical literature, newspapers, etc. 



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